tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086Fri, 13 Feb 2015 12:57:17 +0000who is john galtnever apologizewealth redistributionIronychanging historyenvyliesprivilegepropagandawho is john galt?Vantage Point of the One-Eyed JackI would think that I was the ultimate cynic, except that I'm too cynical to believe something like that.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/noreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)Blogger455125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-226570828792469635Thu, 22 Jan 2015 17:13:00 +00002015-02-13T06:57:17.135-06:00I'm not arguing with you, I'm explaining why you're stupidh/t <a href="http://www.peekinthewell.net/blog/no-i-know-no-such-thing/">House of Eratosthenes</a><br /><blockquote>You know that Atheism isn’t the BELIEF that no god exists, but the LOGICAL CONCLUSION that no god exists, right? Atheism is as much of a religion as off is a TV program.</blockquote>And the response: <br /><blockquote>No wait, hold on. This is bull****.<br /><br />Let’s take your metaphor and run with it. So in this metaphor, religion would be like a fandom (or Star Trek or Supernatural or Firefly etc) and fandom does all sorts of things like hold conventions and hang out at websites and clubs and read material related to the show (so all that would be faith conventions, websites, church, holy text etc). So atheism is like the “Off” tv ‘program’? But there’s conventions going on that are all dedicated to “Off”. One can find entire campus groups all devoted to “Off”, they even have buildings and incorporations. There’s countless websites devoted to “Off” and large amounts of fanfiction on it. That’s not even getting into the spokespeople that bill themselves as the biggest fans of “Off”. </blockquote>Atheism <i>is</i> a religion. I've made that argument before as have many others. How could a non-religion have so many <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism#t-293820">debaters</a> and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/atheist-loses-2nd-under-god-court-appeal/">courtroom-crusaders</a>? Whenever a debate happens with an Atheist about intelligent design, the Atheist is so completely and blithely certain of their own position that they don't even bother listening to what their debate counterpart is even saying. What you see every single time is a farcical mummers show featuring a blind man arguing with a deaf mute. What you watch is smug condescension and cheerful reminders that everything the other person is saying is wrong because that other person is a deluded fool. This is of course an asinine circular ad hominem argument. I.E. You are wrong because you're stupid, and if you weren't so stupid you'd know you were wrong. In addition my own position is correct because what I believe is true, and I know it is true because I am smart. <br /><br />First argument of Atheism: if two religious beliefs contradict each other, then at least one of them must be wrong. If multiple religions contradict each other then at least all but one of them must be wrong. If a religion contains self-contradictory beliefs then it must be wrong. Every religion can be shown to contain self-contradictory beliefs. Therefore every religion must be wrong. ------ My rebuttal: we're not debating the question of whether any particular religion is or isn't true. We're debating the question of whether accidental and spontaneous generation of life is possible or was life designed? We're not asking whether God parted the Red Sea for Moses, we're asking where did this universe we live in come from? That's the debate. Don't read me phrases from some ancient scroll and ask me to defend them. <br /><br />Second argument of Atheism: if there is an all-knowing, all-powerful God then he's an evil God because he allows so much suffering to happen in the world. Only random chance is benevolent enough to believe in. ------ My rebuttal: God didn't have to be all-knowing and all powerful to create the universe. He just has to be powerful enough and knowing enough to get us to where we are today. Furthermore, perhaps the random and sometimes brutal element of chance which shapes not only the lives of men, but of all life, is the most efficient method of perfecting his original imperfect creation. <br /><br />Third argument of Atheism: there doesn't have to be a God to explain the existence of everything. It's an unnecessary, improvable, and pointless complication when a simpler explanation can explain everything. ------ My rebuttal: Great, please explain where the "Big Bang" came from. Also, please explain how a sterile ball of dirt and simple elements and compounds could spontaneously arrange itself "accidentally" into a life-form capable of reproducing itself. Mankind hasn't yet figured out a way to create life from scratch with all our science and super-computers, but it supposedly just happened by itself? Science hasn't succeeded in any way shape or form in explaining how we came to be here. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AOPkXFTd5Rs" width="420"></iframe></div>That's all they've got. All religions are logically incoherent and self-contradictory, life sucks too much to be an intelligent design, and science already explains the origin of everything. Except that a creator might not have or need a religion. A creator might not give two-shits what Richard Dawkins thinks about his design. Finally science hasn't explained anything regarding the beginning of the universe, or the beginning of life. None of the preceding however is the point of this blog post. <br /><br />All these lengthy debates between apologists and Atheists are conducted and they all seem to go the same way. The apologist is on fire; he or she is passionate, intelligent, enthusiastic, and possesses a lengthy list of well-thought out debate points with which he or she plans to trip up the Atheist. The only problem with this plan is that the Atheist isn't going to respond to any of their debate points. He's simply going to sit back, smile condescendingly, and explain why the apologist is stupid. How can you debate a passive-aggressive a-hole who only wants to mock your beliefs and try to get a laugh out of the audience? These Atheists don't debate the apologists, they're too busy sucking up to the crowd, recycling the same tiresome jokes that only Atheists think are funny or insightful. The title of this blog post might as well be the Atheist's slogan. Why don't Atheists just get the tee-shirt? That way their debate counterparts would at least have some idea what they were dealing with. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">UPDATE 02/13/2015 6:56 am cst </div><br />Wintery Knight has a great ... actually it's nearly perfect ... video that you simply cannot miss if you're at all interested in the origin of life. See it <a href="https://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/stephen-c-meyer-lectures-on-intelligent-design-and-the-origin-of-life/">here</a>. http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2015/01/im-not-arguing-with-you-im-explaining.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-3352413936524677194Mon, 19 Jan 2015 16:48:00 +00002015-01-19T10:52:15.600-06:00How do we block these blockers?There are blockers in the world. They consider blocking to be their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Directive">prime directive</a>. <i>[Yes the blocking irony wrapped up in this <i>Star Trek</i> term has certainly occurred to me.]</i> Consider...the light turns yellow and the driver in front of you stops. You are aware that not only could he have gone through the yellow, but you as well could <i>also</i> have gone through. But he stopped! Consider further...he actually slowed down as he approached the intersection. He was aware that the green light might turn yellow, and he wanted to be in a position where he could successfully and safely stop should the green light turn yellow. He approached the intersection with the <i>intention</i> of stopping if that possibility became actualized. <br /><Br />There is actually a term for these sorts of people. They're called <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=define%20marplot">marplots</a>. Now we could spend years of time and forests of paper theorizing why they are the way they are and why they do what they do, but, honesty, I don't think that's necessary. All that is actually required to solve the problem they present, is first to accept that they <i>do</i> exist, and then come up with a workable plan to block their intransigent blocking. <br /><Br />Blockers are at their most self-evident while driving. That's their milieu. The rules of the road combined with it's inherent narrowness, combine to provide them with blocking power that is all out of proportion to their economic and/or political position. There are of course many other kinds of blockers. There are blockers who use their influence with the boss or with investors to sidetrack or veto every one of your great ideas. There are blockers who use their 'friend' status to sideline or overrule your amorous nightclub undertaking. (Cock-blockers) And then there are the ones who drive 50 mph in the left lane of a six lane highway during rush-hour. <br /><Br />I'll take the possibilities of stopping blockers in the order they first occur to me: <ul><li>Kill them. Shoot them, blow them up, stab them, strangle, suffocate, poison, lure into deep pits or horrific crushing deadfalls. The basic problem with all of these simplest of solutions is that enacting any one of them would—in all likelihood—see you in prison. If a blocker could block you with actual prison bars think how awesome that will make them feel! They will have achieved the proverbial <i>acme</i> of their otherwise absolutely pointless existence. You'll be in prison and will never again be in a position to win whatever race it is that you were competing in, complete whatever task you were trying to complete, or simply arrive at your destination on time. Career over. Marriage over, Parenthood over. Life over. They will have blocked you for good and all. Even if dead, the blocker will have won.</li> <li>Hire someone else to block them from blocking you. While this idea sound reasonable and workable, in most cases it's not possible. Take the driving on the road blockers for example. In order to employ blocker blockers, you'd first need to identify and research the history, lifestyle, schedule, and whereabouts of every blocker on the road that you normally travel on, both going to and coming from work. This isn't even remotely possible, although it does give me an idea...</li> <li>Join a consortium of those dedicated to blocking the blockers. I understand. It does seem self-contradictory and somewhat hypocritical to decide that someone's raison d'etre—i.e. blocking—should be systematically and ruthlessly foiled using the organizational power and funding of a large group of anti-blocker advocates. Nevertheless, I believe the ends justify the means.</li></ul> It seems to me that the first order of business is a name for this club. I have an idea but I'm certainly open to suggestions. Have you ever heard the old saw about the irresistible force meeting the immovable object? Well, if what we're after is removing immovable objects from our path then the name of the club is inevitable. Welcome to Irresistible Force, a club devoted to sidetracking, stymieing, and stifling the blockers of the world. In a perfect world, all the blockers would be busy blocking each other in the far right lane, while traffic moved unimpeded to their left. <br /><br />How will this club perform it's noteworthy task? Simply by dedicating themselves to blocking the blockers. Okay, here's where we separate the men from the boys as they say. There are men and then there are cowards. Which group will <i>you</i> sort into? Are you <i>can do</i> or <i>no can do</i>? The way to block the blockers will take teamwork and occationally require taking one for the team. The steps I've imagined are listed below but as with the organization name, I'm certainly open to suggestions. Additionally, if anybody likes this idea and wants to get it started, I'm all ears. Without further ado here are some steps to block the traffic blockers: <ol><li>Identify a blocker.</li><li>Record the license plate, make, and model of his/her car.</li><li>Enter this information into a national blocker database.</li><li>Describe the method this blocker used to block and its effectiveness.</li><li>The elected board of blocker review will evaluate the information entered by members, and offer a bounty for sanctions provided. Blockers will have been noted by multiple group members with the number of similar entries used to evaluate the severity of the blocker as well as the severity of the required sanction.</li><li>Severity of sanction will be graduated and necessarily riskier. These might range from holding up a sign: "Idiot you're blocking traffic!" to following the blocker to his parking spot and letting all the air out of his tires.</li><li>Successful and powerful public relations are the key to success—<i>just like in business</i>. If the public is made aware that there is a countervailing force for good which is meant to combat the intransigent and completely unnecessary evil that these blockers represent, then the Irresistible Force Network could receive both donations and new membership. The larger we become, the more powerful we become. Facebook, Twitter, a webpage, a board of directors, a fundraising team, and a superpac are obvious just to start with.</li><li>I know this sounds like pie in the sky, moonbeans, and Big Rock Candy Mountain, but one day ... I envision a world where speed-limit minimums are enforced as assiduously as maximums. Where left lanes are reserved for passing, and where people are ticketed for stopping on yellow.</li></ol> I want to end this post by describing some simple rules and observations that—if followed—would make driving both safer, and more enjoyable for everyone on the road. First and to my mind most important: Red light means stop. Green light means go. Yellow light means go very fast!<br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/6NEFYCaKakE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />Second, the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome-psyapi2&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&q=left%20lane%20passing">left lane is meant for passing</a>. While that seems simple enough, the corollary to that rule is simply this: if somebody is tailgating you move right. If you're already in the rightmost lane and they're still tailgating, then the middle-finger salute is in order. <br /><br />Finally, whether you were aware of it or not, it actually <i>is</i> possible to tell when the crossing lane traffic gets its yellow and then red light. Related directly to this fact, the following is a great tip ... When the crossing lane traffic light is red, <u><i><b>YOUR OWN LIGHT IS ABOUT TO TURN GREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</b></i></u>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2015/01/how-do-we-block-these-blockers.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-7691911553925212569Sat, 10 Jan 2015 15:49:00 +00002015-01-11T07:50:38.627-06:00I'd rather die standing than live on my knees.<blockquote>To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.</blockquote>George Orwell's doublethink idea in the book 1984 is obviously already in operation, especially in Obama's politically correct administration. Whenever a terrorist attack occurs, Obama shills move Heaven and Earth to avoid tying the atrocity to Islam. We saw that most evidently with the Al-Qaeda attack on Charlie Hebdo in France. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/otBMW35H5Ik" width="560"></iframe> <br />Also this <a href="http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/09/obama-cover-islam-point-cant-use-word-islamic-categorize-isis/">Here</a>. <br /><br />The almost pathological reluctance to pair the words Islamic and terror together in government and also in the mainstream media is endemic and if I may coin a word, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloi">eloi</a>esque. What's interesting to me, is that this propensity to play the ignorant ostrich with its head buried in the sand is causing some big-time liberal rank breaking. Bill Maher, one of the most disgusting and vulgar media figures conservatives love to hate, has indeed broken ranks with his liberal cohorts. He refuses to keep his head buried in the sand. Listen: <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Xj58TavOIqg" width="560"></iframe> <br />At the other end of the spectrum—in almost ironically diametric opposition to Atheist Bill Maher—we have the Catholic Church represented in the person of Catholic League president Bill Donahue. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oq7rbjzpbSw" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />As I sit here looking at this story and the bigger picture, the picture that we refuse to look at, I can't help but think that we're <i>so</i> lost in the dark that we can't even admit we <i>are</i> lost in the dark. We just keep blindly stumbling along, tripping over underbrush, falling, getting back to our feet, and stumbling again headlong, we know not where. <br /><br />I have been lost in the woods in the dark. All alone, no light, no compass, no gingerbread house. It's scary. The first thing you have to do when you become lost is admit that you <i>are</i> lost. America hasn't done that yet. We keep doubling down on the certainty that the direction we're going will lead us back to civilization and prosperity when there's no earthly evidence that we're not heading deeper and deeper into ruin and desolation. <br /><br />War has been declared and everybody is <a href="http://southpark.cc.com/clips/155213/sand-idea">shoveling sand</a> over their own heads. America, we are at war with Islam. It's not a traditional war with front-lines, tanks, and infantry. It's not a cold war like we had with the USSR, with spies, economic sanctions, and propaganda. It's a shadow war with enemies that appear and disappear at will. They lurk in the shadows and walk openly in broad daylight. They proclaim friendship and amity and then when we turn our back they bury the dagger in our backs. <br /><br />The first thing that both Muslims and Eloi always do, is argue is that <i>we</i> can't blame all Muslims for the actions of a tiny minority. That's their only argument. Oh, you were finished? Well, allow me to retort!<br /><br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/FORtwA2lsjM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><Br />Sometimes, in fact often, you can't tell who's to blame. The only thing you really do know, is that somebody is to blame, and somebody else knows damn well WHO THAT IS!!! <br /><Br />I have only one more video for you, but it's the money shot. Warning extreme profanity: <br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5NP8y63Ms4o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><Br /><Br />We don't have to find the terrorists. We have half the world to search, and a billion accomplices who help aid and abet them. It's not even remotely possible. The solution is a simple as what you saw in the Full Metal Jacket video. We have tried to teach them, but we have failed. We have failed because the Muslim world has not given these terrorists the proper motivation. So, from now on, we shouldn't bother trying to punish the magically disappearing terrorists, we should punish the Muslim world itself as a whole. How do we punish them? Well, maybe it's a little pompous to say, but we could start by not sending them any more Goddamn MONEY!!! <blockquote>Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. </br/><div style="text-align: right;">—Benjamin Franklin</div></blockquote> <blockquote>“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” </br/><div style="text-align: right;">—Patrick Henry</div></blockquote> <blockquote>"Maybe it's a little pompous to say, but I'd rather die standing than live on my knees." <br /><div style="text-align: right;">—Stephane Charbonnier</div></blockquote>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2015/01/id-rather-die-standing-than-live-on-my.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-5698184062057176396Wed, 17 Dec 2014 18:41:00 +00002014-12-17T12:41:03.403-06:00RACETY-RACE-RACEI finally figured out what white-privilege really means! White-privilege is the innate ability of white-people to be offensive to black people, merely by virtue of our own existence. There <i>are</i> some actual privileges that come with the white skin though. The first one can be described thusly: Not having to walk around being a self-absorbed narcissistic umbrageous paranoid ass-hole 24/7. <br /><br />Being white means we don't have to spend every moment of our lives, examining each and every interaction with every other person for possible racety-race-race overtones. No dog whistles, no code words, no side-eyes, no wondering if random strangers suspect us of being murderers, muggers, rapists, thieves, drug-dealers, gang-bangers, or panhandlers. Simply by being white we can go about our day not caring at all what complete strangers think about us. <br /><br />On a side note, I know that many of you are fond of the term "RAAAAACISM," but I can never keep the number of 'A's straight, plus it seems as though every time I turn around they're adding more of them. So, at least for now, I going to use the Three R's "Racety-race-race." I like it because the open mockery of those consumed by racialism is blatant and undeniable within that short little hyphen connected five syllable refrain. <blockquote><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-reflect-personal-incidents-racial-discrimination/story?id=27636612">President and Michelle Obama</a> personally identify with everyday experiences of racial bias in America that have underpinned recent protests across the country, they told People magazine in an interview to be released Friday. <br /><br />"Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the South Side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs," Michelle Obama told the magazine. <br /><br />On one occasion, she said, her husband "was wearing a tuxedo at a black-tie dinner, and somebody asked him to get coffee." <br /><br />President Obama said he's even been mistakenly treated as a valet. "There’s no black male my age, who’s a professional, who hasn't come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn't hand them their car keys," he said, according to excerpts of the interview released today. <br /><br />The first lady also described being mistreated at a Target store in suburban Washington, during a shopping trip she took in 2011. "Even as the first lady," she told the magazine, "during the wonderfully publicized trip I took to Target, not highly disguised, the only person who came up to me in the store was a woman who asked me to help her take something off a shelf." </blockquote>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/12/racety-race-race.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-7896154646507082276Tue, 09 Dec 2014 14:22:00 +00002014-12-09T09:48:50.323-06:00Tuesday FunnyIf you enjoyed reading the voluminous trilogy known as <i>The Lord of The Rings Trilogy</i>, then perhaps you can spend a few moments reading about an alternative translation of the <i>Red Book of Westmarch</i>. Those of you who have <a href="http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/09/one-eyed-jack-top-20-sci-fi-and-fantasy.html">followed my blog</a> are perhaps aware that while reading Sci-fi and Fantasy has always been my raison d'être, my personal opinion of the much vaunted LOTR trilogy is ... <a href="https://www.google.com/search?num=40&q=define+meh&oq=define+meh&gs_l=serp.3..0l5j0i10j0j0i10j0j0i10.60822.65204.0.65452.24.18.5.0.0.1.143.1692.14j4.18.0.eprnk%2Cekomodo%3Dtrue%2Ckpnr%3D100.2..0...1.1.59.serp..3.21.1552.0.jy_FMp8rWZI">meh</a>. QED there must be more to this story, than I'd apprehended. In fact I'd tasted a recipe that was subtly flawed. Somebody had spiked the sauce, with some bit of nastiness and everybody proclaimed how the emperors invisible clothes were the absolute bees knees...or something. Yes it's a hopelessly mixed metaphor for my own less than whelming appreciation for Tolkein's excessively long-winded peregrination in formulaic fantasy. Therefore, I'm always on the lookout for somebody brave enough to mock Tolkein and then revel in the mocking. <blockquote><a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/12/08/defeated-tolkien-estate/">No one who gets a postgraduate degree</a> in Hobbit Studies ever imagines they’ll be sued by the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. I certainly didn’t expect to wind up in court against Christopher Tolkien and his lawyers, like Frodo Baggins facing down the Nazgûl on Weathertop. Little did I know I was heading into a legal and scholarly Midgewater when I wrote and published The Lord of the Rings: A New English Translation. </blockquote>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/12/tuesday-funny.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-3425177073560474839Mon, 01 Dec 2014 16:10:00 +00002014-12-01T10:14:49.064-06:00Lèse-majesté and Emperor Obama<blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se-majest%C3%A9">Lèse-majesté</a> /ˌliːz ˈmædʒɨsti/[1] (French: lèse-majesté [lɛz maʒɛste]; Law French, from the Latin laesa maiestas, "injured majesty"; in English, also lese-majesty, lese majesty or leze majesty) is the crime of violating majesty, an offence against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state. <br /><br />This behavior was first classified as a criminal offence against the dignity of the Roman Republic of Ancient Rome. In the Dominate, or Late Empire period the emperors eliminated the Republican trappings of their predecessors and began to identify the state with their person.[2] Although legally the princeps civitatis (his official title, meaning, roughly, 'first citizen') could never become a sovereign because the republic was never officially abolished, emperors were deified as divus, first posthumously but by the Dominate period while reigning. Deified emperors enjoyed the same legal protection that was accorded to the divinities of the state cult; by the time it was replaced by Christianity, what was in all but name a monarchical tradition had already become well established. </blockquote>This definition requires a little explanation. In a nutshell, Emperors were regarded as having the mandate of God. To impugn His Majesty, was not only a crime but actual sacrilege. I.E. you'll be executed and excommunicated. To insult the King is to go straight to Hell; do not pass Go; do not collect $200.00. <blockquote><a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/obama-girls-targeted-criticism-again-conservatives">A GOP staffer has been forced</a> to resign after launching a verbal assault on Malia and Sasha Obama in the wake of their appearance at their father’s annual turkey pardoning ceremony at the White House. <br /><br />Elizabeth Lauten, who served as a communications director for Rep. Stephen Fincher, criticized the two girls in a Facebook rant which eventually went viral. “Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don’t make faces during televised, public events,” wrote Lauten. <br /><br />She went on the call the first children, who largely stay out of the limelight, “classless.” <br /><br />Many have argued Malia and Sasha were behaving like typical teenagers at the event. They appeared unamused by President Obama’s corny jokes and at one point Malia declined to pet the Thanksgiving turkey by simply saying, “Nah.” <br /><br />Lauten has since apologized for her post, admitting, “When I first posted on Facebook I reacted to an article and I quickly judged the two young ladies in a way that I would never have wanted to be judged myself as a teenager.” Lauten’s name became a trending topic amid the controversy, with over 22,000 mentions in 24 hours. Now, her resignation is “in the works.” </blockquote>There is an understanding in the broadcast world, that for more than six years has gripped their hearts and minds. That understanding can be summed up as Obama is taboo. You don't make jokes about Obama. You don't criticize the Obama Family. You back away. If you can't say anything complimentary, ask for help from your editor. Even comedians who have historically joked about anything and everything, tread very lightly when they consider <a href="http://www.rt.com/op-edge/210319-obama-comedy-carvey-politics/">mocking The One</a>. <br /><Br />If you're on the government payroll, obviously, criticizing the President is still the fastest way to the unemployment line. But perhaps we've turned a corner. For six dry unfunny and stilted seasons, Saturday Night Live felt constrained, straight-jacketed, hemmed in, stymied, etc., in their humor, because for the entire history of this storied comedy show, they've mercilessly raked Presidents across the coals with humor. We haven't seen that with Obama. <br /><Br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/9gT2Ol0Rpx0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />But until now, Obama has gotten a pass. Was it the massive and shocking Republican wave election that repudiated the Obama regime and its policies? Was it the tone deaf response of Obama—after this humiliating defeat—to double down on the same misguided and unpopular policies? <br /><br />The question of "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT" will no doubt resonate down through the ages as it intrigues the legions of historians who will dedicate careers and author innumerable dissertations studying this, the downfall of our once great republic. But today is different. A worm has turned. <br /><br />I know that to most people nothing seems different. I know that to Elizabeth Lauten—who must wonder how could a Republican making a criticism of a Democrat first family be railroaded so effectively so massively, so thoroughly—the reality of Lèse-majesté fully confirmed and active has never been more apparent. <br /><br />Even though a Republican appointed staffer has been shamefully forced out of a career because the mainstream media and Democrats at large collectively threw themselves to the floor squalling and beating their fists and shrieking histrionically like hysterical would-be prom queens actually jilted the day of the prom, still it's hard to see ... but things really are different. I know because I saw this SNL skit: <br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/JUDSeb2zHQ0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />It's a small thing, but in effect and as a symbol it's a BIG thing. It says that maybe—in spite of Ms. Lauten—that freedom of speech just might be making a comeback—a strictly limited late-night make jokes while its still legal—comeback.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/12/lese-majeste-and-emperor-obama.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-4545933264410982382Sat, 29 Nov 2014 18:06:00 +00002014-11-29T12:06:59.288-06:00Seeking Sanity Saturday<center>TURN OFF THE CHRISTMAS MUSIC!<br /><Br />Rage against the playing of the Christmas jingles.<Br />Do not go gentle into that Department Store.<Br />Rage, rage against the buying of the crap.<Br /></center> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X-69o6JSoKg/VHn2mcxulGI/AAAAAAAAC3Q/QajDNL5I-P8/s1600/Sad%2BSack%2BSaturday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-X-69o6JSoKg/VHn2mcxulGI/AAAAAAAAC3Q/QajDNL5I-P8/s400/Sad%2BSack%2BSaturday.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br />What's the matter with people? Here's a fun thought experiment. Take a walk through your house. Catalogue in your mind the possessions you see, and try to remember the approximate expense of those items. Keep a running total. Now imagine a lifetime of those purchases from cradle to grave. The average person will spend a thousand dollars this season for a pile of useless crap. When you think about total lifetime non-essential purchases, I'm not talking about food or rent or heat, I'm talking about cassette tapes, compact disks, DVDs, Blue Rays, Amazon, board games, bric-a-brac, and sundries, plastic picture frames, sunglasses, boats, fake ceramic fruit, and on and on. That's a lot of stuff! A great deal of that <i>stuff</i> will be given away at Christmas, and in return you'll be given a like amount of stuff that somebody else picked out for you. <br /><Br />Imagine the sound of a garbage truck dumping its load of broken crap in a landfill. That compacted mass of crap represents every pointless and ultimately worthless item of questionable utility, ornamentation, and entertainment you ever plunked down a paycheck for. So my friends, here's a little Christmas Zen for you: What is the sound of a million dollars worth of junk slowly turning into dust over a thousand years? <br /><br />I hope you all had the chance to spend time with family and friends on Thursday and were properly thankful for what you have, where you are, and properly realize how truly lucky you are compared to the billions today and in the past who had so much less. If after proper reflection and gratitude you decided to camp out in front of a department store or rampage through a Best Buy or Wal-Mart then I'm sorry for you. You're an idiot and there's no hope for you. I hope your dearly bought possessions bring you joy, even though I know they won't. Maybe you think they were great deals and not dearly bought at all, but you've forgotten to factor in opportunity cost. You got some stuff and lost a little of your own humanity. You could have spent more time with family and friends but instead you went out to do battle in a war for whom the winner received only the chance to purchase more useless crap. Congratulations on your pyrrhic victory. <br /><br />And dying in your beds, many years from now, would you be willing to trade all that useless stuff and all those wasted hours shopping, between this day and that, for another day, just one more perfect day with your family? In the end, do you suppose you might regret all those wasted dollars and all those wasted hours rummaging feverishly through aisles full of useless crap? Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday we need a day of sanity. A day devoted to cobbling together the shreds of our own self-respect, a day spent wandering through our own homes taking stock of what we have and why we bought it, and finally a day spent scraping up the remaining broken shards of our own sanity. <br /><Br />Philosophers are famous for asking "Why Are We Here?" The day after Black Friday is a good day to ask <i>When is Enough, Enough?</i> How much more crap can you balance on overloaded shelves, stuff into packed closets, and cram into overflowing toy chests? <br /><br /><center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/MvgN5gCuLac" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></center>Now I know what you're thinking. After all this unhealthy railing against commercialism and greed, you're probably expecting me to offer up the typical high-minded holiday reminder about what Christmas is all about. Will it be donate to the needy? Reach out to the neglected? Invite a neighbor for dinner, like the horrible old lady who lets Cujo the Pomeranian crap under your azalea bushes every morning? <br /><br />Nope. Don't do any of that stuff just because it's Christmas. If philanthropy is your kick, then why not pick some day in the middle of July? Seek out a couple of smelly vagrants and invite them inside for a few hours of central air-conditioning and a sandwich. Or hey, why not be generous in February? There's not much going on for the down-and-out in the month of amore. You could even ask a bum to be your valentine. <br /><br />My advice this Christmas season is to engage in open rebellion against the status quo. Have fun this Christmas by doing the opposite of the herd. Go get a tan. Have steak and French-fries for Christmas dinner. Most important, turn off the Christmas music. That music—which is <i>only</i> played <i>this</i> time of year—has totally brainwashed you over the years, to the point where you might as well be a zombie with a Macy's Card. It's exactly like <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html">Pavlov ringing his bell</a> and you salivating. Snap out of it!http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/11/seeking-sanity-saturday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-791011669350197005Fri, 28 Nov 2014 18:34:00 +00002014-11-28T12:42:53.259-06:00Fisking Darlena Cunha's - In Defense of Rioting H/T <a href="http://moonbattery.com/?p=52903">Moonbattery</a> (I'm trying to be nice, well not really, but I'm trying to be non-profane, so even though it would have been fun to intentionally misspell Cunha, I didn't ... Okay, but I did have to mention the possibility.) <br /><blockquote>Because when you have succeeded, it ceases to be a possibility, in our capitalist society, that anyone else helped you.[1] And if no one helped you succeed, then no one is holding anyone else back from succeeding.[2] Except they did help you, and they are holding people back.[3] So that blaming someone else for your failures in the United States may very well be an astute observation of reality, particularly as it comes to white privilege versus black privilege. And, yes, they are different, and they are tied to race, and that doesn’t make me a racist, it makes me a realist. If anything, I am racist because I am white. Until I have had to walk in a person of color’s skin, I will never understand, I will always take things for granted, and I will be inherently privileged.[4] But by ignoring the very real issues this country still faces in terms of race to promote an as-of-yet imaginary colorblind society, we contribute to the problem at hand, which is centuries of abuses lobbied against other humans on no basis but that of their skin color.[5]</blockquote>There's more than this paragraph at the link, but I wanted to focus on this because in less than 200 words, it contains the essence of her liberal ideology. <br /><Br />[1] Let's start with the asinine strawman that "when you have succeeded ... [it's not possible] that anyone helped you." She is of course referencing one of the most widely ridiculed and risible of Obama arguments ... <i>ever</i>, aka: "You didn't build that." <br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/YKjPI6no5ng" width="420"></iframe><br />We're born as helpless infants. If NOBODY helped us when we were helpless infants we would all have quickly dehydrated and died. Everybody understands that <i>without civilization itself,</i> entrepreneurs could not build successful businesses. Nobody is disputing that. Not even the most hard-core, dyed in the wool, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, came out of a trailer park and became a millionaire, conservative would EVER claim that he'd NEVER been helped! This "You didn't build that" argument dishonestly reworded to [nobody helped you] is the most fatuous flatulent asinine disgusting insulting absurd base moronic buffoonish amateurish cheesy imbecility that ever disgraced a once respected media publication. SHAME ON YOU TIME MAGAZINE! <br /><br />[2] A two-parter for stupidity. Logically the starting assertion that nobody helped you is false, but even if that were impossibly somehow true, it wouldn't logically follow that [therefore] no one hindered you. This is yet more fatuous strawman posturing by a run-of-the-mill liberal hack rewording tattered and worn liberal talking points and spit-balling [teh stoopid] to see who'll be suckered. <br /><br />[3] Finally we get to the very <i>gestalt</i>, the crux of Darlena Cunha's insane paranoid moonbat philosophical framework. Her understanding that some evil collective [the 1% perhaps?] herein referenced conspiratorially as "THEY" conspired in some diabolical way to hold people [the 99% perhaps?] back. The apparent basis for her illogical assumption is that "you didn't build that" because you were helped, therefore if you built <i>nothing at all</i>, <i>logically</i> [it is to laugh] it must mean that you were prevented from building that because "THEY" conspired to stop you. You failed geometry because <i>they</i> [Koch brothers perhaps?] rewrote the world's geometry books in Greek? I.E. <i>Graecum est; non legitur.</i> Sure ma! That's the ticket; see, I failed Geometry because it's a bunch of Greek gobbledygook. Hey, Darlena, thanks for the non sequitur! <br /><br />[4] Paraphrased, Darlena argues that: [In America if you fail it's someone else's fault. This is especially true if you're black because all white people are racist and even when we don't mean to be, we unconsciously conspire to hinder black people and hold them back from success. Even those racist white people who are so racist they <i>actually</i> think they <i>aren't</i> racist, are incapable of disputing this indisputable <i>fact</i> because: being white we have no standing to even argue the point.] So Darlena at last the truth comes out. You admit you're a racist. I would mention that you should be ashamed of yourself, but obviously you already got the memo. Even though <i>you're</i> a racist, I disagree vehemently with the conclusion that all white people are therefore racist. You can feel all guilty and evil if that's what makes you feel ooey-gooey inside, but <i>your</i> guilt stops where your own skin ends, and Earth's atmosphere begins. <br /><br />[5] Perhaps of the entire self-effacing pathetic screed, this is the most vile and yes, racist. You really <i>are</i> a racist Darlena Cunha. Paraphrased as: [By officially ignoring what race people are, society actually exacerbates racial injustice.] This is straight out of 1984. <br /><blockquote>War is peace.<br />Freedom is slavery.<br />Ignorance is strength.<br />― George Orwell, 1984 </blockquote>This is what I call the BIG LIE. It's the race card writ large. [Only injustice can correct injustice. Only another equally despicable wrong can right a historical wrong.] What we do, we do, because the ends justify the means. <i>We</i> can't understand the wisdom of this folly because we're standing in the middle of it and therefore can't see the big picture. We're blinded to the forest by all these trees. Hey <i>sure</i> Darlena! I'll just turn off my critical rational judgement and leave everything up to those wiser few in their ivory towers—such as yourself—who actually <i>can</i> see the bigger picture. <br /><br />On second thought, why don't you climb down off your high horse, Darlena, and open your eyes. I understand that you've spent your entire life absorbing the Big Lie. I understand that you've spent it with your eyes closed and your nose in the air, an insufferable smug supercilious jackass. I understand that your despicably vile and odious systemic racism was fostered and inculcated by parents, teachers, friends, and elders. I understand that you can't help being a deluded and self-defeating racist imbecile, blown helplessly by the winds of fate and helpless in the face of your incalculable white guilt. You poor suffering benighted simpleton. I feel bad for you. Really! What I think you need is a good hard slap right in the face by cold hard reality. Perhaps reality will oblige. God knows you deserve it.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/11/fisking-darlena-cunhas-in-defense-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-6221100470916052252Tue, 25 Nov 2014 13:45:00 +00002014-11-25T07:45:27.891-06:00A black community self-destructs while the MSM cheers them on.<blockquote>Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions. I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people. Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me: neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. Psalm 35.17</blockquote>It's difficult not to judge, prejudge, prejudice...you see? It's difficult not to assume: well, they can't help it. It's difficult not to be racist towards black people when they—black people, the mainstream media, Democrats, assorted hate groups like the Black Panthers, and the NAACP, etc—beat you in the head with racism, both literally and figuratively beat you in the head, over and over. <br /><Br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hDWNB01xGj4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><Br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/M5UGiTIirKw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><Br />A drum beat that never stops. You can hear it pounding in the night, never ceasing. Hate Hate Hate. It's difficult not to hate them. Reginald Denny's life was, not ruined, but certainly made worse. Rodney King was beaten, viciously beaten. But in retaliation, people, some would say 'thugs', some would use a certain non-pc word, I'll just say certain 'people', <i>picked</i> someone simply because he was white. They brutally beat his brains out on the pavement while a video camera crew taped this barbaric lynching. <i>Lord, how long wilt thou look on?</i><br /><br />White guilt...it's still alive and well, kept fresh and new by an unending drumbeat that to my mind and my memory began with "Roots" and continues to this day... beat beat beat beat ...by a complicit mainstream media that revels, glories, exults in violence blood fire murder and racism. Who's more racist, the guy with the brick or the guy with his brains leaking out of his head? The guy in a helicopter with the camera taping away, or the man who has seemingly forgiven those who destroyed his life? <Br /><br />In a completely unrelated story, a <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/11/24/cleveland-website-hacked-after-police-fatally-shoot-12-year-old-boy-carrying/">twelve-year-old boy was shot and killed</a> by a policeman. While there is very little information about this incident, and while the name of the police officer has not yet been released, there is one almost certain conclusion that can immediately be drawn. The police officer who killed the 12-year-old black kid, was also black. How do I know? What makes me so certain? Because if the cop <i>had</i> been white, this story—this tragic and wrongful death—would eclipse even the rioting, burning, and looting following the Ferguson decision. <br /><Br />The first three questions the mainstream media asks to decide "newsworthy" stories are 1. What happened? 2. What race is the victim? 3. What race is the perpetrator? If 1. is particularly vicious, 2. is black, and 3. is white. Then that's a 24/7 news item that can be run for months until a final court decision. Otherwise it's mentioned and promptly forgotten. <br /><Br />The soft bigotry of low expectations is the sound I hear on television day after day. Beat Beat Beat. It's too evil not to be deliberate. The burning question that's been on my mind ever since this "War on Whites" was declared by the MSM, is what is their end-game?http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/11/a-black-community-self-destructs-while.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-7811994961557225109Wed, 19 Nov 2014 00:21:00 +00002014-11-18T18:21:19.070-06:00GrÜbermensch—the perfect boomerang<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/kDomkBtJC7Q" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Gruber is a boat-anchor. Tie this around their necks and throw them over the side. Schadenfreude <i>is</i> delicious isn't it? Gruber's favorite phrase—because he repeats his idée fixe over and over, is that <u>the people are stupid.</u> We're rubes. We don't know any better. <br ><br />However, when he speaks of the American people, who exactly is it that he's calling stupid? Is it me? I didn't vote for a Democrat. Did you vote for a Democrat? Did you vote for Obama? Who is it that Gruber describes as so clueless? So lacking in economic understanding? Who's moronic enough that they would actually cast their ballot for these knob-headed bumbling morons who would vote for something so economically destructive? Who in fact are the feckless twits who elected this narcissistic communist traitor that signed it? <br /><Br /><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/rCyr1ugzxXM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <br /><Br />There was not a single Republican in either the Senate or the House who voted for Obamacare. Not. One! The <strike>President</strike> Scumbag who signed the most economically destructive travesty of a bill in the history of these United States into law is not a Republican. He's the diametric opposite of a Republican. And we have some bad ones. But NOT. ONE. REPUBLICAN voted for this. So class, who can answer this question: How many Republicans voted for the "Affordable" "Care" act? <br /><br /><center><iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DNGzaeLJrNU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />You've seen it elsewhere, you'll see it here. Here's hoping it goes GrÜberviral. <br /><br /><Br /> <b>Hamlet:</b><br /:>There's letters seal'd, and my two schoolfellows,<br /:>Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd—<br /:>They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way<br /:>And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;<br /:>For 'tis the sport to have the enginer<br /:>Hoist with his own petard, an't shall go hard<br /:>But I will delve one yard below their mines<br /:>And blow them at the moon.<br /></center>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/11/grubermenschthe-perfect-boomerang.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-853044649820698137Sun, 16 Nov 2014 17:35:00 +00002014-11-16T12:06:09.610-06:00The Nova Option is required at this timeI.E. You bring a knife we bring a gun. You bring a nuke, we bring a nova! <br /><br />What do we do about Obama? It's great that Republicans now hold congress. It's great that thanks to Jonathan Gruber, the truth about Obamacare is finally being reported and therefore more and more people are slowly awakening from their six-year-long government-begotten stupor. But Obama doesn't care about any of that. Far from being chastened, he's become even more defiant! <br /><iframe frameborder="0" height="234" src="http://www.cnn.com/video/api/embed.html#/video/politics/2014/11/14/newday-acosta-obama-boehner-immigration.cnn" width="416"></iframe><br />So what are our options? There's Impeachment of course, but that would be merely a sideshow, a circus for the masses and much ado about nothing. Obama could be impeached, but he could not be convicted, because conviction requires that two-thirds of the Senate vote to convict. Republicans don't have that kind of majority, and Democrats care more about their careers than they do about justice or the will of the people. So what's left? <br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order">There is no constitutional provision</a> nor statute that explicitly permits executive orders. The term "executive power" <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution" title="Article Two of the United States Constitution">Article&nbsp;II</a>, Section&nbsp;1, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_1:_Executive_Power" title="Article Two of the United States Constitution">Clause&nbsp;1</a> of the Constitution, refers to the title of President as the executive. He is instructed therein by the declaration "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed" made in Article&nbsp;II, Section&nbsp;3, <a class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_Care_Clause" title="Take Care Clause">Clause&nbsp;5</a>, else he faces impeachment. Most executive orders use these Constitutional reasonings as the authorization allowing for their issuance to be justified as part of the President's sworn duties,<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> the intent being to help direct officers of the U.S. Executive carry out their delegated duties as well as the normal operations of the federal government: the consequence of failing to comply possibly being the removal from office.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order#cite_note-3">[3]</a></sup><br />An executive order of the President must find support in the Constitution, either in a clause granting the President specific power, or by a delegation of power by Congress to the President.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup><br />The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_the_Federal_Register" title="Office of the Federal Register">Office of the Federal Register</a> is responsible for assigning the Executive order a sequential number after receipt of the signed original from the White House and printing the text of the Executive order in the daily <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Register" title="Federal Register">Federal Register</a> and Title 3 of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Federal_Regulations" title="Code of Federal Regulations">Code of Federal Regulations</a>.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-5"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order#cite_note-5">[5]</a></sup></blockquote>The President of the United States has intransigently—with chin arrogantly thrust into the sky—proclaimed that he will do whatever he wants, the will of the people be damned. He's got two years to finish fundamentally transforming the USA into a 3rd-world dysfunctional dystopia, and he will damn well accomplish that mission no matter what. The recent shenanigans of the Democrats in the Senate provide a blueprint on how to get around stumbling blocks, although to be honest in Obama's case it would be more apropos to say <i>bumbling</i> block. <blockquote><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-poised-to-limit-filibusters-in-party-line-vote-that-would-alter-centuries-of-precedent/2013/11/21/d065cfe8-52b6-11e3-9fe0-fd2ca728e67c_story.html">Senate Democrats took the dramatic step</a> Thursday of eliminating filibusters for most nominations by presidents, a power play they said was necessary to fix a broken system but one that Republicans said will only rupture it further. <br /><br />Democrats used a rare parliamentary move to change the rules so that federal judicial nominees and executive-office appointments can advance to confirmation votes by a simple majority of senators, rather than the 60-vote supermajority that has been the standard for nearly four decades. <br /><br />The immediate rationale for the move was to allow the confirmation of three picks by President Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — the most recent examples of what Democrats have long considered unreasonably partisan obstruction by Republicans. <br /><br />In the long term, the rule change represents a substantial power shift in a chamber that for more than two centuries has prided itself on affording more rights to the minority party than any other legislative body in the world. Now, a president whose party holds the majority in the Senate is virtually assured of having his nominees approved, with far less opportunity for political obstruction. </blockquote>The Democrats in a straight party-line majority vote, changed rules that were in place for half-a-century. Who's to say that so-called Executive Orders even though Presidents have issued them, seemingly from the very beginning, are permissible? America has a system of checks and balances, and it's apparent, incredibly undeniably apparent that the Executive Branch has usurped the power of Congress. He must be stopped and because of the bicameral system in place and the constraints of the Impeachment process, he cannot be stopped by Congress. Therefore the 3rd branch must perform its solemn duty to reign in this naked power grab by an imperious megalomaniacal sociopath with delusions of Godhood. <br /><br />THERE IS NO CONSTITUTIONAL BASIS FOR EXECUTIVE ORDERS <i>IN</i> THE CONSTITUTION! So the solution is simple. Somehow, the legitimacy of these so-called Presidential Executive Orders must be challenged in the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Take away his pen. He'll still have a phone. I guess he can use it to cry into.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/11/the-nova-option-is-required-at-this-time.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-7615270543105699624Wed, 22 Oct 2014 00:32:00 +00002014-10-22T08:05:29.672-05:00Neo-Con Thought ExperimentDidn't we all read about those dastardly neo-cons of the George W. Bush era? They wanted to take over the entire world and remake all the Earth's manifold cultures in their own white-bread male heterosexual capitalist image. It's almost as though they thought they were God or something! <br /><br />Left-thinking proud non-white trans-sexual communist anarchists promptly went to work with a passion! They immediately dubbed—<i>as in dumbass-dubya</i>—these traditionalist stodgy money-grubbing fools "Neo-cons." Leftists poring studiously and reverentially over the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky">Alinsky</a> play book wasted no time. After the endless recounts of 2000 were finally quashed at last by the Supreme Court, the left—<i>by left I mean every American who'd voted for Al Gore</i>—ignoring the fact that the game was over, continued campaigning and never ceased for the entire eight-year Bush Presidency. I suppose that at the very least you have to admire their tireless obstinacy. For eight long years, the national main-stream media focused unwaveringly on any and every issue that cast conservatives and especially George W. Bush in a bad light. <br /><Br />For about a week after 9-11 it was as though America breifly rested in the hypnotic and deceptive eye of a class-five hurricane. All was peaceful for about one week. During that one glorious week, every American both Democrat and Republican, black, white, male, female, transgender<i> (okay maybe not them) </i> plastered red-white-and-blue bumper stickers on their vehicles. They put red-white-and-blue ribbons around their trees. All of America was one giant angry family intent on some serious payback. <br /><br />Needless to say, this unsettling period of unprecedented patriotism seriously threw left-wingers off their stride. Nothing daunted, they rebounded with a passion, continuing to repeat ad-infinitum the same lies they'd been chanting like a demonic mantra from Satan himself. <i>Bush Stole The Election! He's not the President! The five Neo-Con Supreme Court justices overruled the American people!</i> It was almost as though the mainstream media had taken upon itself the guise of Gandalf the Gray confronting the monstrously evil George W Bush himself. <br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/V4UfAL9f74I" width="420"></iframe> <br />To this day, the entire left-wing world is united in its hatred and scorn for the horrifically evil GWB. "Blame Bush" to this day has became the ubiquitous never-failing excuse for every ill in the universe. "Why didn't you do your homework?" asks the teacher. To which you might reply: "I couldn't because when I saw how President Bush was destroying the entire world and nobody could stop him, I couldn't stop crying. I tried to do my homework but the pages kept getting wet, and my furious pencil kept ripping the paper, and at last I went outside and fell to my knees and I prayed to Darwin: 'Oh magical Darwin,' I prayed, 'Please let George W. Bush die of cancer or a heart attack or a stoke. In Darwin's name I prayed, amen.' I said, and then without doing my homework I fell into an exhausted and heartbroken sleep. And that's why I don't have my homework, because of George W. Bush." <br /><br /><i>Imagine</i>—as John Lennon would say—imagine a world at peace. Imagine no more hunger. Imagine no more war. Imagine no more killing over religion, no more war over scarce resources, no more war over political dogma. No more war ever. <i>I wonder if you can?</i> <br /><br />Ask yourself this one simple question: What if your neighbor was horribly abusing their wife and children? Would you still be friends? What if every day you were left wondering: <i>Will he lose it and finally kill them tonight? Will that drunken vicious evil bastard finally beat them to death tonight? Will they be carried out of my neighbor's house in broken little pieces in the morning?</i><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">WHAT WOULD YOU DO!!! </div><blockquote><a href="https://stopcorruptdss.wordpress.com/tag/handicapped-14-year-old-starved-to-death/">Police and paramedics</a> were called to Danieal’s West Philadelphia home and when they opened her bedroom door, the stench of decay hit them. Danieal, who had been dead for several hours, was on a dirty mattress surrounded by feces. Maggot-infested bedsores covered her back. She had been on the mattress for such a long time, the shape of her body was imprinted into the mattress. A grand jury report was released this week, indicting nine people and describing Danieal’s life of pain, neglect, abuse and eventual death. <br /><br />The mother of a 14-year-old girl who starved to death while under city supervision will “accept responsibility” for the crime and plead guilty to third-degree murder charges, her attorney said yesterday. <br /><br />Andrea Kelly, 39, will agree to serve 20 to 40 years in prison for the 2006 death of her daughter, Danieal, said lawyer Richard Quinton Hark. <br /><br />The girl, who suffered from cerebral palsy, weighed just 46 pounds when she died in a sweltering apartment. Her legs looked liked bare bone and her back was full of gaping bedsores infested with maggots. </blockquote>The entire world is filled up with really bad people. When governments are so poor and dysfunctional that thousands, hundred's of thousands, millions, die of <a href="http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/cause-of-death/malnutrition/by-country/">malnutrition</a>, what would you do if they were your neighbor? Would you keep taking them food even though none of it seemed to make it to the children? Would you pay their bills and watch helplessly as the violence and abuse continued unabated? <br /><br />Would it really be so terrible a world if the entire world had the same laws and the same freedoms? Does it make me a bigot or a racist that I point out the vast intractable evil that continues to enslave most of the globe in spite of decades of charity? Am I really such a mean vicious evil neo-con when I say that right now, <i>it's</i> not working? THIS, WHAT WE'RE DOING, IT ISN'T WORKING!!! Am I crazy? Or is it the entire rest of the world? <br /><br />Oh, I know, I know, I'm just drinking too much of that old Neo-con Cool-ade. It would never work would it? Famine, filth, blood and slaughter are just too enchanting, too inviting, too par for the course, to just throw away on some pipe dream or pie in the sky impossibility. <Br /><Br />In the entire history of the world, has there ever been a country so powerful that they could really do it, if they really wanted to? The Romans couldn't do it; if not America, then who?http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/10/neo-con-thought-experiment.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-9138471574742443648Mon, 13 Oct 2014 17:09:00 +00002014-10-22T17:00:09.140-05:00One More Time On Gun Control<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/62ytib-XCeY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><Br />His first point is this: "Australia in 1996 had the biggest massacre on Earth; still hasn't been beaten." <blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australia)">The Port Arthur massacre</a>, of 28–29 April 1996, was a killing spree in which 35 people were killed and 23 wounded, mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia. Martin Bryant, a 28-year-old from New Town, a suburb of Hobart, eventually was given 35 life sentences without possibility of parole. He has significant intellectual disabilities and is now imprisoned in the Wilfred Lopes Centre near Risdon Prison Complex. <br /><br />The Port Arthur massacre remains one of the deadliest shootings worldwide committed by a single person and remains the deadliest in the English-speaking world. </blockquote>Well, the Port Arthur Massacre was a bad one there's no doubt about that. But there's another massacre that has it beat hands down: <blockquote><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_City_bombing">The Oklahoma City bombing</a> was a domestic terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, destroyed or burned 86 cars, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings, causing at least an estimated $652 million worth of damage... <br /><br />On April 17–18, 1995, McVeigh and Nichols removed their supplies from their storage unit in Herington, Kansas, where Nichols lived. They loaded their bomb supplies into a Ryder rental truck. The two then drove to Geary Lake State Park, where they nailed boards onto the floor of the truck to hold the 13 barrels in place and mixed the chemicals using plastic buckets and a bathroom scale. Each filled barrel weighed nearly 500 pounds (230 kg). McVeigh added more explosives to the driver's side of the cargo bay, which he could ignite (killing himself in the process) at close range with his Glock 21 pistol in case the primary fuses failed.] During McVeigh's trial, Lori Fortier (the wife of Michael Fortier) stated that McVeigh claimed to have arranged the barrels in order to form a shaped charge. This was achieved by tamping the aluminum side panel of the truck with bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to direct the blast laterally towards the building. Specifically, McVeigh arranged the barrels in the shape of a backwards J ...</blockquote> In 1996 an Australian massacre caused lawmakers in that country to outlaw guns throughout the country. If people have guns, the argument goes, they might use them to massacre 35 people. Yet it was only a year earlier, when Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols used ammonium nitrate—fertilizer—to kill 168 people. Even though this deadly fertilizer is widely available for purchase in thousands upon thousands of stores, our congress somehow neglected to outlaw it after this horrific massacre! How did they miss this? In addition, barrels—used to hold the deadly fertilizer—also weren't outlawed, nor in fact were trucks—used to hold the deadly barrels. Not even nails were outlawed when clearly it was the nails put in the barrels which ended up killing most of the people. It's as though Congress is just begging for another Oklahoma City style massacre. You'd think they would have jumped all over these incredibly dangerous weapons just lying around at greenhouses, hardware stores and used car lots around the country, but no! Instead all Congress did was pass a law that would tighten security around Federal buildings. <Br /><br />Jim Jefferies' first argument is that the people cannot be trusted with the right to own guns, because one crazy person will abuse that right. You know, it occurs to me that I've heard a similar argument recently. It's called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler's_veto">Heckler's Veto</a>. And this Heckler's Veto was recently used to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/388181/ninth-circuit-guts-student-free-speech-upholds-hecklers-veto-american-flag-david">ban the wearing of patriotic t-shirts</a> in California. Yes, while people supposedly have the right to freedom of speech, in California public schools at least, wearing the American Flag or other symbols such as the American Bald-Eagle with talons clutching a bundle of arrows has been forbidden. No patriotism to be tolerated on Cinco De Mayo. One might even assume that in Australia if some nefarious chin-wagger could manage to slaughter 35 people simply using words, the government would promptly outlaw talking. <Br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzgXscPxJj8/VDvrZzffIqI/AAAAAAAACyM/NVUQlm9kIsg/s1600/FUCALIFORNIA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SzgXscPxJj8/VDvrZzffIqI/AAAAAAAACyM/NVUQlm9kIsg/s320/FUCALIFORNIA.jpg" /></a></div><Br /><br />Jefferies' next argument is that guns are not useful to protect yourself with. He quickly brings up the assault rifle straw-man, and some statistics about suicides—which reminds me of a typical Piers Morgan Mythoid[1]. Here are some real statistics however: <a href="http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp">70 to 80 million American adults</a> own one or more guns. In 2011 nearly 40,000 Americans committed suicide, and half of them used a gun to do it. Guns are certainly the most popular method of suicide, but remember the other half? They used various methods: poison, prescription drugs, rope, razor blades, etc. Should we then outlaw these less popular suicide methods? <Br /><Br /> <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5bR-wXF3DzQ/VDvvGgN1iJI/AAAAAAAACyY/brSrSq9uM9w/s320/suicide.JPG" /></a></div> Dividing 20,000 by 80 million gives the gun-owning per capita suicide-by-gun rate of roughly 0.00025. That's less than one three-thousandth of one percent. Yet Jim Jefferies claims that you gun owners are "80% more likely to use that gun on yourself" than you are to use it to protect yourself. <Br /><Br />It's always been a source of deep frustration to me that statistics of gun <i>deaths</i> are so readily accessible, yet gun <i>saves</i> are completely impossible to discover. How many people used a gun either to wound, kill, or just frighten away a would be rapist, murderer, burglar, etc.? That information just isn't there. When I was twenty-five years old, four young men armed with baseball bats accosted me in a parking lot. I pulled my Beretta out from under the seat and the bad guys promptly bugged out. Nobody was hurt. I called the police just because, but I doubt any of the information taken in the police report made it into statistics anywhere. If I'd lived in Australia however ... I wonder ... would I be writing this today, or would I be sipping soup through a straw with an imbecilic grin upon my face and a track of drool working its way down my chin? <Br /><Br />His next argument is that if you have kids you can't have a gun which is readily accessible. You'd have to keep it in a gun safe and therefore couldn't get to it in an emergency. Luckily for gun owners, there are things called metal doors and deadbolts, and even <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=biometric+gun+safe+fingerprint&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=37360321145&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=207728094546639117&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4pozgietpg_b">biometric gun safes</a> which only require a touch of the owners finger to open. Furthermore, being attacked is much more likely outside of your home. Thus the concealed carry permit and the quickly accessible gun in a hidden holster on your person. The point is simply this: anybody with a bare modicum of intelligence can safely and responsibly own a gun and have it quickly available when needed. <Br /><Br />Jim Jefferies' final argument is that the original purpose of the 2nd Amendment is no longer valid. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government that needs to be overthrown. Jefferies argument is that the government has tanks and jets and drones. He argues that opposing that kind of firepower with hand guns or even assault rifles is absurd. As he says: You're bringing a <i>gun</i> to a <i>drone</i> fight. Allow me to repeat a statistic: THERE ARE 80 MILLION ADULT GUN OWNERS! In comparison, "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Armed_Forces">As of 31 December 2013</a>, 1,369,532 people were on active duty in the armed forces, with an additional 850,880 people in the seven reserve components." So, 80 million versus two million. And the military won't be able to use its tanks and jets, because all of the noncombatants live cheek-by-jowl with the rebels. It's called asymmetric warfare, and it becomes ever so much more effective when the military sympathizes with those they fight against, as in their own neighbors, their own family and friends. <br /><Br />While only 80 million people own guns, there are a lot more than 80 million guns. It's more like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country">300 million</a>. Even more important than that, 320 million with knives, hammers, machetes, swords, nail guns, chainsaws, cars, trucks, and the list goes on and on. If the people in their hundreds of millions rise up against a tyrannical government, that government <i>will</i> be overthrown. If every American were all deprived of our guns however, that revolutionary process would claim vastly more innocent lives before it was over. Guns truly are the great equalizer, and believe it or not, when it gets down to brass tacks, a quality hunting rifle is probably a much more efficient and accurate weapon than an M-16. So yes we could, if necessary, bring about 300 million guns to that hypothetical drone fight. <Br /><Br />[1] Mythoid — (my own creation) A statistical claim that seems genuine since it's so impressively <i>numbery,</i> but when you actually look into its veracity, it turns out that it's just not true. It was apparently just completely made up out of whole cloth, then passed around by left-wing kooks to the point where it's believed by them, simply because it's been quoted back and forth so often.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/10/once-more-time-on-gun-control.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-3155977327121513585Thu, 09 Oct 2014 14:12:00 +00002014-10-09T09:24:41.103-05:00Hands Up, I'm a Retard!Notice: for those of you with mentally retarded friends or relatives, when I use the word 'retard' I'm specifically <i>not</i> referring to birth defects or tragic accidents. I will <i>not</i> apologize for my use of the word retard. It's a great word. It's really the best word to use for certain types of people. You see, some people are retarded, and some people ... well they're just <i>retards.</i><br /><br /><br />So another black is <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-erupt-after-st-louis-police-officer-fatally-shoots-teen-n221811">killed in St. Louis</a> and now I suppose we're in for yet more mob violence, looting, arson, shootings, etc. The new meme is a sandwich. Last time it was hands up, don't shoot. Before that it was Skittles. Now it's a sandwich: <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Warning Profanity Ahead! </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">Wearing a hoodie, walking in the street, playing w/ toys &amp; eating a sandwich are now Capital Offense. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShawShooting?src=hash">#ShawShooting</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/16Times?src=hash">#16Times</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VonderritMyers?src=hash">#VonderritMyers</a><br />— Delonte (@mettawordlife83) <a href="https://twitter.com/mettawordlife83/status/520078589174509568">October 9, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">Suspect's aunt cries: "they shot my Drew 16 times. All he had was a sandwich" ; fatal police shooting Klemm&amp;Shaw So StL <a href="https://twitter.com/FOX2now">@FOX2now</a><br />— Andy Banker (@andybankertv) <a href="https://twitter.com/andybankertv/status/520030105847209984">October 9, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">Not for one second will I believe the billfuckery that <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VonderritMyers?src=hash">#VonderritMyers</a> had a gun. Tell the truth. A crazy cop reacted to a sandwich.<br />— Taylor A. Jackson (@AngryBirdRED93) <a href="https://twitter.com/AngryBirdRED93/status/520204593427279873">October 9, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">"He had a sandwich in his hand, and they thought it was a gun" damn! add sandwiches to the list of things we cannot carry...<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VonderritMyers?src=hash">#VonderritMyers</a><br />— afrofuturistic gold (@sohumstudios) <a href="https://twitter.com/sohumstudios/status/520195810911584258">October 9, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><br />There's apparently a language barrier in the black community. When we think in terms of 'cause and effect', the black community thinks in terms of 'racism.' Blacks don't seem to understand that their own thoughtless or violent actions cause negative consequences; they also don't seem to understand that belonging to a group brings consequences when others <i>in</i> that group take thoughtless or violent actions. I'm speaking here of being an accomplice or an accomplice after the fact. For instance, being a member of a <a href="http://whitegirlbleedalot.com/">black flash mob</a>. <br /><br />Let's start with the fact that racism and cause and effect are two different things. Actually, I can't start with 'racism' directly, because the definitions of words mean different things to different people, depending on who they think they are. To most non-black people, racism means treating a particular person in an aggressive, hostile, or unfair way simply because of their race. Please notice that this definition doesn't pertain to any race in particular. Incredibly, the word racism means something completely different to an American black. To understand what the word 'racism' means to an American black, you must first understand that the word has for blacks become a gestalt for every ill. Think of it as the diametrical opposite of the word 'panacea.' <br /><br />Black people in the USA have been taught from the cradle that everyone non-black hates them, and wants to keep them in the ghetto until they can finally be put back in the cotton fields, with 'massah crackin' de whip.' Now then, what I just wrote—<i>some would argue</i>—could <i>itself</i> be racist. Except for the inconvenient fact that every bit of it is absolutely true, even if not readily provable. It's like beating a child in the head routinely. That behavior may not be readily provable without a video, but you can nevertheless still extrapolate that apparent fact by raising your hand to the child and watching as he cowers and covers his head with his arms. You see, some things are just <i>so</i> obvious that demanding proof is <i>itself</i>, dishonest. <br /><br />You wan't proof? I'll start with the recent death of Liberian visitor Thomas Duncan, the one who came to America after repeatedly lying about his contact with two victims of Ebola. Twitchy has the <a href="http://twitchy.com/2014/10/08/ebola-didnt-kill-him-guess-whats-being-blamed-for-the-death-of-thomas-duncan/">evidence</a> and it's not pretty. <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">You know the black brother was going to pass away. Save the missionaries and let the brother die. <a href="http://t.co/GiaLM9bCEH">http://t.co/GiaLM9bCEH</a><br />— Shawn Sawyer (@GordanGartrelle) <a href="https://twitter.com/GordanGartrelle/status/519888247200432129">October 8, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">I'm not surprised that out of three people treated in the US for ebola, it's the black one who dies. Negligence or racism? same shit..<br />— The Artful Thinker (@Dizzleboitellem) <a href="https://twitter.com/Dizzleboitellem/status/519881973939331072">October 8, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">I'm not surprised the the one black man with <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ebola?src=hash">#ebola</a> died but all of the white patients survived. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/shady?src=hash">#shady</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/racism?src=hash">#racism</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN">@cnn</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/texashealth">@texashealth</a><br />— backfencechat (@shadyhousewives) <a href="https://twitter.com/shadyhousewives/status/519884279984435200">October 8, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br /><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">OF FUCKIN COURSE the black guy with Ebola dies... But if he were a white doctor....<br />— #JusticeForMikeBrown (@itsLeeYuh) <a href="https://twitter.com/itsLeeYuh/status/519888498221133826">October 8, 2014</a></blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script> <br />You want some more proof? How about <a href="http://www.ropercenter.uconn.edu/elections/how_groups_voted/voted_12.html">voting demographics</a>? How about proof that <i>everything in the known universe</i> is apparently racist to black people. Courtesy of The Daily Caller, this <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/28/here-it-is-definitive-proof-that-racism-is-everywhere-all-the-time/">litany of mind-boggling stupidity</a> will leave you breathless in astonishment! You could literally spend the rest of the day clicking links in there and still not see it all. It's like the Smithsonian Institute of retards who scream 'racism'. <br /><br />So, to make it simple for everyone to understand what racism means to black people, all that was necessary was to just change <a href="http://www.scrapbook.com/poems/doc/12550.html">Toddler's Rules</a> and substitute the word <i>"racist"</i> for <i>"mine."</i><br /><br />An African American's Rules for Racism: <br /><ol><li>If I say it's racist, it's racist</li><li>If it's a criticism of me, it's racist</li><li>If it's a criticism of any black person, it's racist</li><li>If you're white, you're a racist</li><li>If you're white and better than me at anything, in any way, it's racist</li><li>If whites and blacks are doing something beneficial or heroic together, blacks did it</li><li>If whites and blacks are doing something harmful or nefarious together, whites did it</li><li>If it just looks like racism, it's racist</li><li>If I think it's racist, it's racist</li><li>If I say it's not racist and then later change my mind, it was always racist</li><li>Once you're a racist, you will always be a racist no matter what</li><li>If you're white and you disagree with this list, it's because you're a racist</li></ol>So finally, back to the disconnect between cause and effect. When non-black people are caught in the act of breaking the law, they expect negative consequences. When black people are caught breaking the law, they expect racism. When non-black people don't get that job they applied for, they apply for another job. When black people don't land that job, they call the EEOC. The list is infinite. When anything bad happens to a non-black person, they look for the reason the bad thing happened. When anything bad happens to a black person, they know the reason, yep it's racism.http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/10/hands-up-im-retard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-4505968727700746392Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:55:00 +00002014-09-30T11:27:54.906-05:00The Boy Who Cried, "Bet Me!"<span style="font-size: xx-small;">This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.</span> <br /><br /> There's this kid I once knew; he became a man, and I realize now that I never really knew him at all. Mick G. Dilatory has some kind of mental disorder. Pathological liar? Anyway, he lies <i>all</i> the time. The worst part of it all though, is that whether he's telling you the truth or a lie he sounds just the same. You can't tell whether he's lying by looking for telltale clues. He's already studied all that stuff. He knows all the tricks and has schooled himself ruthlessly to never, ever, give himself away. To give you an illustration of how infuriating this is, I remember one time Mick called me about nine o'clock in the morning to tell me that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. I knew he was full of shit as usual and told him so, and then he said, "Holy crap another plane just hit the other tower!" At that point the story had passed far beyond the bounds of possibility and had grown absurd. So I said, "Now I know you're full of shit!" And he said "Bet me!" <Br /><Br />"Bet me!" has <i>always</i> been Mick's bluff. No matter how ridiculous his story, when challenged he will always cry, "Bet me!" If he's telling the truth he will offer some figure between twenty to perhaps as much as a hundred bucks for the wager. <i>And he will do the exact same thing if he's lying.</i> In all the years I've known him he's lied constantly and he's never paid off a single bet, <i>ever</i>! Mick would often say that the bet didn't count because we never shook on the bet or even more often he'll turn the bet completely around and claim the exact opposite of his lie was actually what he was betting on and that it is <i>I</i> who in fact owes <i>him</i> the money. <br /><Br />In the boy who cries "wolf" stories, the distrust everyone has for the liar always backfires on the liar when he finds himself in real trouble and really <i>does</i> need help. The moral of the story is always: once you've lost the trust of those who know and care about you, you can probably never get it back. So don't lie! Mick didn't care. In his own mind he's partitioned truth and reality and just like in the book <i>1984</i> by George Orwell, Mick has mastered the ability to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink">Doublethink</a>. <blockquote>The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth </blockquote> It all happened one year ago, today. Mick had placed a couple of folded sheets of paper on my desk. On the back it said: "Jack, Please read and suggest improvements, thanks, Mick." On the first page at the top, he'd typed the words: "A short, short story by Mick G. Dilatory." The story was about this ex-Marine who was shot in Afghanistan and paralyzed from the waist down. It was powerfully written, gritty and fascinating. It was also tragic enough to bring tears to my eyes. I realized at once that Mickey boy <i>hadn't</i> written this story. As usual, for no reason at all, little Mickey had decided to spin out another lie. So, I decided that <i>this</i> time I was really going to get him good! This time he would finally learn his lesson! <br /><br />If only I could take it all back now. <i>I'm sorry.</i> I have to take a break for a minute. I can't see the screen. <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Okay, what happened was that the short story Mick told me he had written, was actually written by an ex-Marine named Michael, and Michael really was paralyzed from the waist down. It had been a true story, a heartbreaking tragic and true story. It was a story not just about Michael, but also about the men he served with and their reactions to Michael's horrible injury as he was medevac'd out. <Br /><br />I found all this out by Googling a few sample phrases. What do you know, right there on Reddit was the almost word for word text of the story, along with a video made by the author attesting to its veracity with pictures and even the bullet. Mick the dirty rotten liar wasn't <i>just</i> a liar, he had stolen the valor and the true words of a genuine Purple Heart wearing United States Marine, and trivialized them by claiming he'd written a short story. <i>What a scumbag!</i> I thought. So I contacted Michael through Reddit and together Michael and I conspired to bring the wolf to Mick's door. <br /><br />Now, the rest of this story isn't so much about Mick, although he's the victim in the end, it's more about dropping a snowball from the top of a mountain and expecting anything but real tragedy to happen. This snowball was tossed by calling Michael. Well, let's just stay it <i>snowballed.</i><br /><br />Ex-Marine Michael was a member of a wounded warrior association, so he contacted them through their proprietary message board. He soon got a phone call. Sgt. Thomas Vincent offered to put a real scare into our little liar-liar-pants-on-fire. "Tommy," as he styles himself, caught a C-130 Hercules jumpseat out of Quantico, and arrived in Memphis Tennessee just a day later. I met him at the airport and together we plotted little Mickey's big lesson in humility. <Br /><Br />The day before Tommy's arrival, Mick had called me to ask if I'd read his story. I told him I'd been swamped and hadn't had a chance yet. As I dropped Tommy off at a local steakhouse I phoned Mick to let him know that I'd read his story and I invited him out to lunch to talk about it. I could tell right away that Mick was really thrown off by my behavior. The script wasn't going as he'd no doubt rehearsed. I was supposed to have read it right away; instead, I had ignored it for a full day. I was supposed to have immediately Googled it to quickly discover that someone else had written it. Then I was supposed to have immediately called him to accuse him of his low-down dirty-rotten lying ways. Then Mick would have said, "Bet Me!" However, instead of accusing him of plagiarism I had offered to buy him lunch. Let's just say his hinky-meter was in the red. <br /><br />I was waiting inside when Mick arrived. Tommy was in an adjacent booth dressed in civilian clothing, sitting within listening distance. After the waitress took Mick's order and mine, I started round-about trying to get Mick to start talking about <i>his</i> story, but he was being cagey. "What story?" he asked. I didn't bother addressing that asinine question and instead engaged him in shop talk and trivia. After we got our steaks and began eating, I casually offered an aside about his short story. In the original version of the story, ex-Marine Michael had either mistakenly—or perhaps intentionally—misspelled the word <i>carotid</i> by referring to his "corroded artery." in Mick's plagiarized version he had corrected that, so I said, "You misspelled carotid. You wrote <i>corroded</i> when you meant to write <i>carotid</i>." <br /><br />"I don't know what you're talking about," says Mick. He can't help it; lying is as natural to him as breathing. <br /><br />"Then why are we here?" I asked. <br /><br />"You said you were going to buy me lunch. I'm here for lunch. Why are you here?" replied Mick suavely and insouciantly with an infuriating little smirk on his face. So I gave him back some of his own medicine. "No, you said <i>you</i> were going to buy <i>me</i> lunch!" I told him. It really gives Mick a thrill when somebody lies back at him. A genuine grin appeared on Mick's face as he shot back at me, "well, since you offered to buy I didn't bring any money." And I said: "But since it was actually <i>you</i> who offered to pay for lunch I didn't bring any money, either." <br /><br />It was at this point when Sgt. Vincent intruded. He stood up and stepped over to our table and then sat down next to Mick, kind of pushing him over in the seat. "Who's this?" Mick asked me? <br /><br />"This is Sgt. Vincent. He's a good friend of a wounded vet, name of Michael." <br /><br />"Nice to meet you. Now get out of my seat <i>Sgt. Vincent,</i>" ordered Mick in a snide and disdainful voice. <br /><br />It was at this point that Tommy let Mickey have it, but good! In full Marine drill-sergeant style, he dressed Mickey up and dressed him down. The entire time this 50 decibel rant was going on, Mick kept his smug supercilious grin plastered on his face. Once Sgt. Vincent finally wound down, that old liar Mickey had succeeded in convincing himself—using Doublethink—that it was in fact <i>he</i> who'd been wronged. Here <i>I'd</i> offered to buy lunch for <i>him</i>, and instead of paying for his steak, I'd ambushed him with some lunatic straight out of Full Metal Jacket. The fury at this grievous injustice enveloped Mickey's face and he roared back, "I don't know what you're talking about!" <br /><br />At this point, Mick pulled the lapel of his jacket aside and displayed his heretofore concealed semi-automatic pistol. "I don't know who you are, but if you want trouble you're sitting next to it. NOW GET OUT OF MY SEAT!" He roared. <br /><br />Have you ever heard that old conundrum about the irresistible force meeting the immovable object? Well it was exactly like that. Sgt. Vincent got up from the seat, threw a twenty on his own table and turned back to Mick. "I'll be seeing you again, real soon, but you, well ... let's just say that you'll never see <i>me</i> again." <br /><br />Mickey has a special van that brings him to the office now. He can still work from his desk but he doesn't need his executive bathroom key anymore. As for Sgt. Thomas Vincent? Well it turns out he's got an iron clad alibi. At the moment of the shooting, he was with his wife eating dinner at the Globe and Laurel restaurant about a mile from MCB Quantico. http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/09/the-boy-who-cried-bet-me.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-4356816400761151149Mon, 22 Sep 2014 18:56:00 +00002014-09-22T14:50:45.535-05:00Handicapped parking, white privilege, and fatal stupidity<div align="center"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/bK-Dqj4fHmM" width="420"></iframe><br /></div><br /> h/t <a href="http://www.redstate.com/2014/09/22/cyclists-need-check-privilege/">RedState</a><br /><br />Being handicapped is difficult. I'm not handicapped, but I've seen the struggle my father goes through getting in and out of tight places where his motorized wheel chair won't fit. I understand how difficult it can be. Just getting into the bathroom can be an exhausting event. People who're handicapped need handicapped accessible parking near ramps and sidewalks. Then of course, there are the walruses and the perfectly ambulatory elderly. <i>These</i> are the ones who have that blue-tag-thingy hanging from their rearview mirror. They can get out of their car and walk far enough into the store to ride one of the store's motorized shopping carts. With an American population that is literally <i>growing</i> increasingly more obese it seems as though every other car on the road has one of these bright blue things hanging from their mirror. <br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/04/the-states-where-americans-are-the-most-and-least-obese/">More than a third of U.S. adults</a> earning less than $15,000 a year are obese, while only a quarter of those earning more than $50,000 annually carry that distinction. And there's even a generational divide: Baby boomers (adults aged 45 to 64 years old) are more likely to be obese than any other age group. <br /><br />What might be most disconcerting, however, is how quickly and completely the obesity epidemic has overtaken the country. In 1990, not a single U.S. state had an obesity rate above 15 percent, but by 2000, only two, Arizona and Colorado, had obesity rates below 15 percent, and by 2010, not a single state had an obesity rate below 20 percent. Even last year, adult obesity increased significantly in six states — Alaska, Delaware, Idaho, New Jersey, Tennessee and Wyoming. <br /><br />The problem is such that nationally, obesity has leveled off at just over 35 percent, which has earned the United States the unenviable distinction as the world's most obese major country. </blockquote>Work with me here... could it possibly be that all these doctors with their blue hanging mirror decorations and all the malls, grocery stores, and Wal-Marts with their square acres of handicapped parking spots at the front of every parking lane, and their fleets of "mobility scooters" make it that much easier for every walrus to just sit on his or her fat ass and ride around everywhere they go? The way things are now, the only exercise these walruses are ever going to get is the short walk from the couch to the refrigerator. <br /><br /><strong>What is white privilege, does it exist, should you be concerned, angry, defensive, or perhaps smug?</strong><br /><br />To fully understand white privilege requires that you not only <i>be</i> black, but that you also grow up in a black neighborhood. I'm sorry Hispanics and Asians, you are just not capable of fully understanding this term. Moreover, all you rich blacks who grew up in affluent neighborhoods, you also can never fully understand the full scope of this terrible concept known as "white privilege." Finally, for white people like me ... well, <i>we're</i> so incapable of understanding what white privilege means, that most of you probably don't even believe it even exists! Oh sure, we can <i>hear</i> a black person recite the definition, but it is simply meaningless to us. It's absurd, even ludicrous to our lily white ears. I gather that it's something about how white people have it so great and black people have it so bad and the reason for this basic truth of life is that it's all the white people's fault, because of slavery or something. That's about as much as I could fathom. <br /><br />Now, it's possible that you think my flippant dismissal of this entire concept is misguided or even typical of a white person—typical because I'm a benefactor of white privilege of course. Therefore in the interests of attempting to soothe your racially offended butt-hurt feelings, I'm going to go further into this concept than the surface appearance which—by the way—looks to me like "African-Americans" believe that white people owe them a living. <br /><br />To black people, <i>White Privilege</i> means that whites benefit from an unseen and unremarked upon advantage in our dealings with others as we go about through our lives. When we walk into a nice restaurant they have a table ready for us. When we apply for a loan we get it. When we apply for college we're accepted. When we apply for a job we're hired, <i>and</i> at a much higher pay rate than the few minorities that occasionally slip through—<i>due to a clerical error no doubt</i>. You see, black people's eyes see us as clueless pink fools just wandering about and airily dismissing those of the darker persuasion. We never give African-Americans and their hell-on-Earth lives a second thought. We're white and we just assume that <i>everyone</i> is treated like we are, like royalty. If you're white, now is the time to stop and imagine what life would be like if it hadn't been handed to you on a silver platter and with a silver spoon for your soft pink hands to hold. <br /><br />To white people, success is a simple formula that has absolutely nothing to do with race. It all starts once a child is born. Both mom and dad interact daily with the child teaching baby to talk, reading to baby, loving and cuddling. Once the child is old enough to start kindergarten, parents demand ever increasing levels of commitment and effort from their children. If all goes as planned the young adult graduates from high school with good grades and the opportunity to attend college. The effort and commitment continue and once college is successfully completed, these upwardly mobile young men and women are set to obtain high-paying jobs. Once they're set with a good job they start thinking about marriage and family. That's the American dream, not just for whites but for everyone, <i>except black people of course</i>. I guess that's why black people think we're so clueless, because we don't understand why black people can't follow the simple plan I've just described. <br /><br />Two theories account for the disparity in outcome between blacks and practically every other race: the first theory—the politically correct theory—is called "white privilege," which was just discussed. The second theory for the disparity of outcome is described in many different ways and so most people probably assume there are many theories, but in fact they all boil down to one <i>root cause.</i> This singular cause accounts for the miserable existences of most African Americans. It can be explained in simple terms thusly: <i>It's their own damn fault!</i><br /><br />I don't want to go full-on politically incorrect—<i>aka raaaacist</i>—and suggest that <a href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/">dad wasn't there for the black kids</a>, but I will. Why wasn't daddy there? Maybe it's because of <a href="http://familyinamerica.org/journals/spring-2011/confronting-more-entrenched-foe-disaster-no-fault-divorce-and-its-legacy-cohabitation/#.VCBfR40o6M8">no fault divorce</a>. Maybe it's because of <a href="http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2011/08/what-causes-flash-mobs-two-theories.html">child-support</a>. Maybe it's because of foodstamps and welfare checks. Regardless of the reason, it's a fact that in black households, dad was AWOL, missing in action, or dead. He wasn't there because he didn't have to be there. He wasn't there because Uncle Sam in his infinite wisdom passed a whole bunch of laws that made his presence not only financially unnecessary, but also downright financially inconvenient. <br /><br />Who voted for all these family destroying laws? It was the Democrats. Who voted for all these family destroying Democrats? It was every single black person who voted. There's your chain of cause and effect right there. Black people for the past sixty years have gone to the polls and almost unanimously have cast their vote to live on welfare, to eat on foodstamps, to live in section 8 housing, to receive substandard educations, to be killed in drive-by shootings to be mugged by drug addicts, to live each and every day in fear in their terrible neighborhoods. Black people voted and as they say elections have consequences. <Br /><br />In conclusion, there's a horrific twin similarity between people <i>choosing</i> to be handicapped and people voting for Democrats. In both cases they think their lives will be made easier. As they grow more hugely grotesque, as they remain uneducated and poor, as they go through the day wondering why their lives are so difficult in spite of government promises and prime parking it never occurs to them that they are the architects of their own hell on Earth. http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/09/handicapped-parking-white-privilege-and.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-41451919120482202Thu, 18 Sep 2014 14:40:00 +00002014-09-19T17:25:22.985-05:00Ebola and Islam the perfect storm?<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm not a Muslim, I don't have any Muslim friends, and I'm not terribly interested in the religion except as it relates to the existence of evil in the world, so for the following discussion, I'm relying on internet look-ups and perhaps imperfect knowledge. Based on what I've learned, it seems that living the life of a Muslim means a <a href="http://www.wikihow.com/Perform-Wudu">lot of washing!</a>&nbsp;Muslims have a call to prayer five times every day, but before they can pray they must be clean. The following verse is from the Qur'an, Surah 5:</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.39px;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wudu">O ye who believe!</a> when ye prepare for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands (and arms) to the elbows; Rub your heads (with water); and (wash) your feet to the ankles. If ye are in a state of ceremonial impurity, bathe your whole body. But if ye are ill, or on a journey, or one of you cometh from offices of nature, or ye have been in contact with women, and ye find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, and rub therewith your faces and hands,&nbsp;</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allah" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); color: #0b0080; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.39px; text-decoration: none;" title="Allah">Allah</a><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 22.39px;">&nbsp;doth not wish to place you in a difficulty, but to make you clean, and to complete his&nbsp;favor&nbsp;to you, that ye may be grateful.</span></span></span></i></blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So right off the bat Muslims are already used to a much higher level of ritualistic cleanliness that goes&nbsp;<i>hand in hand</i> with the similar steps necessary to prevent Ebola infections.</span><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px currentColor; color: #444444; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/09/ebola-schools-must-re-opening/">Giving tips on how to reduce the chances</a> of contracting the virus, especially in schools, a senior nurse at a primary health center at Ketu, Lagos, who declined having her name in print, urged parents and school teachers to teach the students to properly wash their hands as often as possible, avoid putting their hands in their mouths and to as much as possible, avoid shaking or having body contact with people.<span style="background-color: transparent;">&nbsp;</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px currentColor; color: #444444; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Since the virus grows on body openings like eyes and mouth among others, and is passed through body fluids, it is important for people, especially children and their teachers, to adopt the seven steps of hand washing and wash their hands regularly since the children are prone to putting their hands into their mouths or rubbing their eyes.<span style="background-color: transparent;">&nbsp;</span></blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; border: 0px currentColor; color: #444444; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“It is not just enough to wash your hands with soap but to learn the seven steps of hand washing which allow you to thoroughly scrub your hands. Hand sanitizers can come in handy, especially when one doesn't have access to water. Though these are not the full solution but could go a long way in saving lives.”</blockquote><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ebola is spread by bodily fluids like saliva, sweat, urine, blood, vomit, feces and ejaculates. Unlike colds flues and other airborn viruses, you are unlikely to catch Ebola unless there is touching, and/or close physical contact with an infected person. As a matter of etiquette Muslims only touch others with their right hand. They use their left hand to do unsanitary things, like cough into, sneeze into, wipe with, pick their nose with, etc. Their right hand is used to eat with, touch the Qur'an, and so on. Logically, if you are ritualistically conditioned to never rub your eyes, pick your nose, touch your naughty bits with your right hand and you <i>only</i> touch people with the right hand then you are very much less likely to spread Ebola to others.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Furthermore, Muslim women are kept in seclusion, and when they are allowed to venture outside in the accompaniment of a male member of the family, they're always covered from head to toe in thick protective clothing, so they are very much less likely to come into contact with Ebola victims. Therefore, logically, only the Muslim men are likely to infect others and even then only with their right hands, and don't forget they've already washed that hand several times today.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, no sane human being would use a highly&nbsp;contagious disease as a weapon, for fear that the virus they intentionally spread would come back around and infect their own population along with the enemy. Notice I used the word "sane"?</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For the reasons given above, it seems almost inevitable that in the coming days Ebola will be used as a weapon of terror by fanatical Islamic jihadists &nbsp;to attack either Israel or the United States. Muslim daily rituals, seclusion of women, polite Muslim&nbsp;etiquette, and fervent maniacal belief in their own righteous invulnerability almost guarantees this ineluctable future event.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you read the obligatory paragraphs of pablum meant to ease your mind and allay your every concern, remember that they don't bother including malevolent intent in their <a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/9/19/6543157/ebola-is-unlikely-to-go-airborne">"Don't Worry"</a> essay .</span>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/09/ebola-and-islam-perfect-storm.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-4182125626266490386Sat, 06 Sep 2014 16:06:00 +00002014-09-06T11:06:55.601-05:00One-Eyed Jack Top 20 sci-fi and fantasy authors and the best of their books<div style="text-align: center;"><b>Page-Turners</b></div>Did you ever buy a book with wonderful, almost reverential, reviews, and then sit down full of expectation, anticipation and just sheer joy, but then when you actually began reading the book, nothing much seems to be happening? Pages go by. More pages go by. Oh hurrah they're throwing a big party. Everyone's having a great time. Uh-oh, somebody's messing with the fireworks. Ha-Ha-Ha stupid Pippin and Took! And more pages go by. AND NOTHING IS HAPPENING! This is supposed to be the best fantasy of all time? Seriously? Who has time to read one-hundred pages of nothing much happens? Two-hundred pages ... I've probably read more books than anybody you know. But I couldn't—I won't!—read&nbsp;<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/tolkien-tedious-or-tremendous">this</a>. Because after 3000 pages I expect something a little more earth-shaking than finally managing to throw the shiny <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin">MacGuffin</a> into a volcano. I've read most of the books written by the authors listed below, and they wouldn't be listed below if I had ever once furiously hurled one of their most vaunted and acclaimed novels into my fireplace.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Tolkien-Sucks-ebook/dp/B009BHJGT4"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Cb0wySPSkJM/VAswjR_CobI/AAAAAAAACno/huqLZY2hD8M/s1600/how%2Btolkein%2Bsucks.jpg" height="246" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Prolific</b></div>What I want most from my favorite authors are books. You're a writer; so write! My top 20 list includes both sci-fi and fantasy authors, although they frequently cross-over from fantasy to sci-fi and vice versa. Every member of my top 20 list has a fairly lengthy bibliography.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><b>Convenient</b></div>As Stephen King would say, <i>the world has moved on. </i>Libraries and book stores are next in line for the economic chopping block. It wasn't that long ago that people went to places called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_LLC">Blockbuster</a> or <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37068852/ns/business-us_business/t/no-rental-chain-hollywood-video-close/#.VAsl7_mwLIQ">Hollywood Video</a>. It wasn't that long ago that people rode on <a href="http://www.parkcityhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Teacher-Background-Information.pdf">wooden contraptions</a> pulled by horses or mules. All the authors listed below have many titles available electronically. Lie in your bed, or sit on your couch and simply click a few links and presto! You'll be reading a great book.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><ol><li><b>Brandon Sanderson</b> — I first started reading Sanderson's books because he took over the <i>Wheel of Time </i>saga when Robert Jordan passed away before concluding his epic saga that I had been reading for more than twenty years. Sanderson did a masterful job in finishing it and tying up all the literally thousands of loose ends. The Wheel of Time is the greatest epic fantasy saga of all time. I can't praise it highly enough. Every page has something exciting happening. Sanderson's contribution to the Wheel of Time was so impressive that I started reading his other books...all of them. I haven't yet read a book by Brandon Sanderson that wasn't thrilling. Sanderson's best work in my opinion is the <i>Stormlight Archive 01 - The Way of Kings</i> and the <i>Stormlight Archive 02 -&nbsp;Words of Radiance</i> is equally wonderful. You can pick anything written by Brandon Sanderson and you won't be disappointed.</li><li><b>Robert Jordan</b> — He wrote the Wheel of Time series. From the very first page of the very first book <i>The Eye of the World,</i> you'll be hooked. You won't be able to put it down. I read and reread the entire series every time Jordan came out with the next sequel. Eleven books read and re-read over and over and they never got old! Robert Jordan would have been number one on my list if he'd lived long enough to complete his masterpiece.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Orson Scott Card </b>— His book <i>Ender's Game</i> is widely considered to be the best science fiction book ever written. I particularly enjoyed his <i>Ender's Shadow</i> series featuring a lesser known character named at first simply Bean—and later known as Julian Delphiki, Jr. Recently Orson Scott Card has begun collaborating with another author—Aaron Johnston—on a series called The Formic Wars, of which three thrilling books have been written. Trust me, you'll want to read them.</li><li><b>Terry Goodkind</b> — The <i>Sword of Truth</i> series is epic fantasy that thrills from page one to ... a lot of pages later. There are currently 13 books written and I've loved them all. I particularly enjoyed book six titled: <i>Faith of the Fallen.</i>&nbsp;In it he explores a fantasy world where collectivism is the regime and degradation, starvation, and misery are the rule.</li><li><b>George R.R. Martin</b> — This author is at the top of every popular list. His Song of Ice and Fire series aka&nbsp;<i>Game of Thrones</i> is widely acclaimed. I have enjoyed every book—although I haven't been enjoying waiting and waiting for book six. He's got another series that is not nearly so popular as Ice and Fire, but in my opinion incredibly entertaining. It's called Wildcards. and if you liked comic-book superheroes and super-villains as a kid, you'll love this series as an adult.</li><li><b>Lawrence Watt-Evans </b>— His Ethshar series has always been one of my favorites. Each book is set in the same fantasy land called Ethshar, but features entirely new characters and plots. You never know where he'll go next. My favorite is called <i>Spell of the Black Dagger</i>, but they're all wonderful, whimsical, and escapist fantasy of the first order.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Gordon R. Dickson</b> — He's a prolific writer who's particularly good at interweaving philosophy and fiction. My favorite work by Dickson is his Childe Cycle series and particularly book one: <i>Dorsai!</i>&nbsp;I also got a kick out of <i>The Right To Arm Bears</i>&nbsp;but for a completely personal reason that those who know me will understand and those who don't ... won't.</li><li><b>L.E. Modesitt</b> — Although best known for his Recluce series (Yes, that's how it's spelled.) my favorite series by L.E. Modesitt is the <i>Forever Hero </i>trilogy. It shouldn't be missed by anyone who considers himself a science fiction aficionado. He's written a <i>lot</i> of books from the Recluce series, and the Imager trilogy, to the Corean Chronicles and the Spellsong cycle.&nbsp;</li><li><b>Larry Niven &amp; Jerry Pournelle</b> — They've each written at lot of great science fiction, but together they wrote two books that have fascinated and horrified me by equal turns. Their books feature helpful aliens we call "Moties" and if they seem lovable and friendly, well, you just need to step back and take another look. The first book <i>The Mote in God's Eye</i>, begins with a strange alien ship that sails into our solar system propelled by a a laser that is based light years away in a vast dust cloud, or <i>nebula</i>. It's a really great book, and an excellent answer to the question: in Darwin's world, what if mankind isn't the fittest?</li><li><b>Raymond E. Feist</b> — <i>The Magicians Apprentice</i>&nbsp;simply shouldn't be missed. It's at the top of many fantasy favorite lists with good reason. Feist doesn't waste any time boring you with pointless prose as plots and counterplots split, and re-split again and again until it seems as though a hundred different balls are being juggled at once. Then Feist takes all these separate threads—the characters and their different exigencies—and culminates the story by reweaving the tangled mess into an incredible and masterful conclusion.</li><li><b>Piers Anthony</b> — His Xanth series is fun and fast paced. You'll groan and groan again as puns abound. My favorite series by Piers Anthony is called the <i>Apprentice Adept</i> Series. It's a whimsical look at a land split into science-fiction on one side and fantasy on the other. &nbsp;I also really enjoyed his much much darker series entitled:<i> Bio of a Space Tyrant.</i>&nbsp;Not for faint of heart or subject to nausea, Anthony describes a future in space that resembles a time not too long ago on the high seas when pirates and evil men ruled with cannon and sword, and rape and plunder were the order of the day.</li><li><b>Alan Dean Foster</b> — <i>Flinx</i> and his mighty mini-drag Pip are just too much fun. You'll also love the fantasy realm of Foster's&nbsp;<i>Spellsinger</i> series. Foster has a lengthy bibliography and if you enjoyed Star Wars, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Dean_Foster#Star_Wars">guess what?</a>&nbsp;</li><li><b>J.V. Jones</b> — although this writer doesn't have the impressively lengthy bibliography that the other authors on this list have, her <i>Sword of Shadows</i> series is so incredibly good that there was no way I would leave her off. I've been waiting and waiting for her next, because much like George R.R. Martin when she finally delivers the next in the series, I know I won't be disappointed.&nbsp;</li><li><b>R.A. Salvatore</b> — Have you read the <i>Dark Elf trilogy</i>? WTF! Get it now! Salvatore writes in elegant prose and succeeds in describing evil in such glittering perfection and yet with such monstrous thoroughness that you will be held spellbound. Imagine one good person born in hell, raised by demons. Trained to fight by a devil. That person is&nbsp;Drizzt Do'Urden.</li><li><b>Dave Duncan </b>— The first books I read by this author were from the <i>Seventh Sword</i> series. It was a fascinating juxtaposition of swords and gods on the one hand and the inevitable intrusion of science on the other. Later I read his four book&nbsp;<i>A Man of His Word&nbsp;</i>series and I can tell you that this was some incredibly suspenseful storytelling! Don't miss the next four in the same universe entitled: <i>A</i>&nbsp;<i>Handful of Men.</i></li><li><b>Steve Perry</b> — <i>The Man Who Never Missed</i>, the first book in the Matador series, is the kind of book that changes you. &nbsp;The person I was when I began reading that book, wasn't the same person by the end. It's not just thought provoking; it's not just entertaining. Most of us believe we're powerless. We are one vote among hundreds of millions—ultimately and statistically insignificant. The universe by Steve Perry introduces insignificant people who refuse to be ignored. All that aside the Matador series is tremendously entertaining.</li><li><b>Frank Herbert</b> — <i>Dune</i> a book read by millions and millions. It's considered one of the best in science fiction and with good reason. The plot is rich and interwoven with a metaphysical&nbsp;idée fixe called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melange_(fictional_drug)">Melange</a>. The books themselves will pull you out of yourself. You'll forget for a time who you are and find yourself transported into a malevolent world of betrayal where seemingly Darwin's survival of the fittest has run amok.</li><li><b>Steven King</b> — The word "prolific," is completely incapable of conveying the massive library this author has compiled. King is a workhorse and the plow he tills the soil with is a typewriter. (probably a keyboard these days) Have you read <i>The Stand?</i>&nbsp;Some might argue that it's not sci-fi because there are no spaceships or light-sabers. Some might argue that it's not fantasy because they're no elves, wizards or dragons. To me it's a crossover. <i>The Stand </i>is a combination of contemporary humanity combined with a disease—think Ebola—the end of the world, and finally the epic showdown between God and Satan, good vs. evil. All that in just one book. (King has written <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King_bibliography">so many books</a> that I don't think even <i>he</i> knows how many there are.)&nbsp;You have to read the seven book <i>Dark Tower</i> series, <i>Firestarter</i>, <i>The Mist</i>... King's ability to weave a story out of just about anything is uncanny, and often horrifically disturbing.</li><li><b>Julian May</b> — I first started reading her with a book called: <i>The Many Colored Land</i>. This book is a cross between science and fantasy. Bored twenty-first century would-be explorers could take a one-way trip back in time to the Pliocene epoch, to a particular river valley doomed to be swallowed by massive volcanic eruptions. A dead end in the distant past with a window of opportunity was available for the daring few to escape their endless ennui. No time paradoxes are possible because nothing and no life form will be able to survive the coming apocalypse. Imagine their surprise to discover they were not alone!</li><li><b>Steve Miller &amp; Sharon Lee</b> — I don't enjoy romance novels. With that said, if the writers are talented and their subject is fascinating, I can be persuaded to take part. Forget that the Liaden novels are inherently romance novels. The plots are so sophisticated, thrilling, and enjoyable that the romance takes a back seat. Don't worry; there's no heaving bosoms or explicit sexual descriptions. The stories center around a world called Liaden where cut-throat entrepreneurs wheel-and-deal and those who can't cut the mustard often have their throats ... well ... you get the idea.</li></ol><div><br /></div><div>This list is incomplete. There are many other authors who deserve to be here. In truth if I was fair-minded enough, and stubborn enough I'd list my top one-hundred. Unfortunately there's just so much time in the day and just so much energy I have left.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>I'll finish with this thought: Song writers can fool all of the people some of the time with three minutes of <a href="http://www.complex.com/music/2013/05/the-25-most-violent-rap-songs-of-all-time/">violent grating noise</a>. Painters can fool some of the people all of the time with <a href="http://www.artnewsblog.com/piero-manzonis-shit-and-all-things-poop/">shit in a can</a>&nbsp;or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ">piss in a jar</a>. But when you sit down with a book, you're endeavoring to spend many hours seeking understanding of the writer's vision. We who read are not fools. We're not reading to enhance our own popularity. We read because we truly enjoy being entertained. If you write boring long-winded meandering chapters that begin nowhere and end nowhere, then the only people you'll fool are the people who claim they love Tolkien.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>P.S. Didja-ya ever notice that LOTR fans are always watching soap operas, reality shows, and Broadway musicals?</div>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/09/one-eyed-jack-top-20-sci-fi-and-fantasy.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-7306816568339683244Thu, 28 Aug 2014 16:03:00 +00002014-08-28T11:03:33.635-05:00I've got a bad feeling, a helpless feeling.<a href="http://www.news.com.au/world/ukraine-demand-eu-military-assistance-as-russia-invades/story-fndir2ev-1227040620188">Russia invades Ukraine</a>. The Ebola plague continues to <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/28/world/africa/ebola-outbreak/">spread exponentially</a>. ISIL forces<a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-islamic-state-terrorism-20140827-story.html"> take more territory</a> and commit further brutal atrocities. The <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/22/feds-yellen-depressed-wages-holding-back-workers/">economy continues to stagnate</a>, and honesty, with war and rumors of war, it's got me wondering, what's next? <br /><br /> <blockquote><b>The Second Coming</b><br /><Br />Turning and turning in the widening gyre<br />The falcon cannot hear the falconer;<br />Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;<br />Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,<br />The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere<br />The ceremony of innocence is drowned;<br />The best lack all conviction, while the worst<br />Are full of passionate intensity. <br /><br />Surely some revelation is at hand;<br />Surely the Second Coming is at hand.<br />The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out<br />When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi<br />Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert<br />A shape with lion body and the head of a man,<br />A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,<br />Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it<br />Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.<br />The darkness drops again; but now I know<br />That twenty centuries of stony sleep<br />Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,<br />And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,<br />Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? </blockquote>I spend my days distracted. I can't concentrate completely on any task because in the back of my mind I'm waiting. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop or the sword to fall. I talk with co-workers and they also feel a similar unease. Obama fiddles while America burns or maybe he rearranges the deck chairs while America sinks. Pick your own cliché because there's something rotten in Denmark, is my feeling. Mitt Romney's famous "forty-seven percent" have already grown to more than fifty percent according to the Census Bureau. There are less people working than there are <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2013/10/25/great-more-americans-on-welfare-than-working-full-time-n1731984">people who collect welfare</a>. <br /><br />So on the one hand it's war and rumors of war, on the other it's a plague, and all I can do is wait and worry. And while waiting occasionally I cringe as I imagine the crack of the whip or the fall of the sword. I wait blindly in the dark for the peal of thunder as the first of the Seven Seals is opened at last. <blockquote><a href="http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/revelation-kjv.html">And when he had opened the fourth seal</a>, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.</blockquote>I've never felt this level of pressure before. I feel, believe, have a hunch, or perception that we stand at the brink. <br /><Br />When I was ten years old I got a miniature collie, a Sheltie, for my birthday. <br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vr_L6fob8ks/U_9JVs1QTuI/AAAAAAAACnY/ebwK9NODlew/s1600/sheltie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Vr_L6fob8ks/U_9JVs1QTuI/AAAAAAAACnY/ebwK9NODlew/s400/sheltie.jpg" /></a></div><br />One day when "Foxie" was ten months old, she got outside through a not quite shut front door while my grandmother and I were unloading groceries from the car. She made a beeline straight for the road—a fairly busy road. I watched parallelized as a car doing more than forty miles per hour ran over her, and screeched to a halt with smoking tires fifty feet down the road. It all happened in an instant. That feeling, that helpless feeling of impending doom as I waited to assess the final outcome is what I feel today, every day. Foxie wasn't run over by the tires. The car body passed over her without crushing her. She was greasy and scared and she ran yelping to me for comfort. As I gathered her up, I remember falling to the ground shuddering in relief as the adrenaline continued to pump through me. That feeling of impending doom is the feeling I feel everyday now. Back then when my arms were full of groceries and my puppy first pushed her way through the front door I was a bystander completely helpless. That's the way I feel, now. <br /><Br />I don't know what's going to happen. I don't think anybody does, but I've got a really bad feeling about it, a helpless feeling. http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/08/ive-got-bad-feeling-helpless-feeling.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-1326908832802199552Sun, 24 Aug 2014 18:20:00 +00002014-08-25T07:59:21.960-05:00Laying blame in Ferguson is like peeling an onion<blockquote><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/darren_wilson_is_a_hero.html">No one seems to be talking about</a> the daily threat to life and limb that police officers endure. There is almost no reporter attempting to discuss what is really going on. This huge man, a thug, having robbed a store and beaten up the clerk, was resisting a police officer's repeated verbal commands. A thug who obviously thought the police were on to him and his criminality. It ended the way Michael Brown wrote the script of his life. There lies the blame for it all -- in a pool of his own blood. Thank goodness it wasn't the other way around, with another officer gone, trying to do his job in service to the community. <br /><br />The police have every right to turn these neighborhoods into militarized zones with curfews and crackdowns. And more than that, an obligation to bring order to these inner-city cesspool plantations created by Democrat policies. Entitlement programs give rise to feral living and immorality -- especially after the people turn against law and order, equity and justice, civility and right, and stampede the businesses of others and take that which is not theirs. What do you do with an entire community of thieves? </blockquote>Well, <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/08/darren_wilson_is_a_hero.html">David S. Whitley</a>, how did they become a "community of thieves?" Are you suggesting that this is their normal state of being? Furthermore, can't you see that the in-your-face provocation of cops dressed as storm troopers literally throwing their weight around, tossing tear-gas grenades, shooting rubber bullets, pushing, shoving, arresting, in ghetto neighborhoods—where they hate cops anyway—is insanely misguided, and perhaps intentionally so? <br /><Br />Looking at the raw numbers, the facts are clear: <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-americans-the-police-kill-each-year/">Police shoot civilians</a> at four times the rate that <a href="http://www.nleomf.org/facts/officer-fatalities-data/year.html">civilians shoot cops</a>. I'm not suggesting that this is bad. I'm not admitting that it's okay. What I'm saying is that perhaps police training should focus less on the gun and more on the people. To my mind, both Darren Wilson and the Ferguson police department are somewhat complicit in this entire destructive debacle. Isn't it possible that all of this could have been handled differently? Perhaps there wasn't an opportunity. Perhaps their wasn't sufficient training or equipment. Perhaps training officers to draw and fire as a reflex is a mistake. <br /><Br />I'll start with this presupposition: an individual law enforcement officer's success is defined not by how many crimes are prevented, but by how many criminals are put in prison. A patrols officer's success is not determined by how many people are obeying the speed limit, but by how many speeding tickets are handed out. Time after time in case after case law enforcement success is determined not by how many victims are hurt but by how many criminals are punished. Can't you see how horribly misguided our system is? <br /><br />Not to put too fine a point on it, the job of law enforcement <i>should be</i> to decrease the instances of law-breaking. That is all. Instead it seems to me—albeit through my own admittedly limited viewpoint—that law enforcement has forgotten what they are actually supposed to be doing and instead are engaging in pure one-upmanship and grandstanding simply for the notoriety and the admiration of their peers. The object of law enforcement should be much more about preventing crime, and not nearly so much about solving it after it's already happened. Law enforcement should be proactive not reactive. The example in Ferguson Missouri is merely another case in point. <br /><br />Lacking specific information about the Ferguson case, I'm not going to level accusations regarding the criminality of the shooting or lack thereof. I think we'll all agree however that the militarization of law enforcement has in recent years become more and more obvious and ominous to all of us who watch it happen. But there's a whole lot more to consider. <br /><Br />Consider the outraged population in Ferguson demonstrating peacefully. They may not yet be throwing bottles and rocks, or setting fires, but even lacking these outward signs of rage, don't believe for one second that they are not all enraged to the breaking point. The protesting blacks in Ferguson all have one thing in common: they don't like the police. In a word they HATE the police. Police have come to symbolize and represent the systemic lack of black wealth, status, and power. The black race's near inability to shape their own destinies, to live as free men, to matter at all is expressed in this animalistic chaotic self-defeating violence that just won't go away. <br /><br />Now don't get me wrong. I didn't say the rioting blacks in Ferguson who blame whites in general and the police specifically are correct in their judgment. Obviously black people themselves are the primary cause of their own misery. Whether they realize it or not, they are the architects of their own ghettos and their own prisons. They've built prisons for their own minds and there they are kept—or perhaps the better turn of phrase would be—<i>there they stay.</i><br /><Br />The liberal left's decision to "empower" women by separating the fact of fatherhood from the responsibilities of fatherhood is the single most attributable cause of their suffering. We know from countless studies that children who grow up in families lacking a father-figure have vastly <a href="http://www.gwu.edu/~pad/202/father.pdf">lower chances of positive outcomes</a>. Another factor that must be considered in black suffering, is the negative consequence of being a studious black. Blacks reading text-books are ridiculed and tormented by their less studious peers as "acting white." Therefore consider their lives: <ul><li>Everyone they know lives in section 8 housing</li><li>No father at home</li><li>Everyone they know buys food with an EBT card</li><li>Peers ridicule anyone who succeeds at school</li><li>Street gang members are admired</li><li>Popular entertainment features profanity and violence</li></ul>In the computer programming profession we have an often used acronym: GIGO. It means garbage in garbage out. Well GIGO applies to people and society also. In the ghetto it's also garbage in garbage out. We're not going to turn out civilized productive members of society from the urban jungle where we house, clothe, and feed the savages who've enchained themselves therein. <br /><Br />How did these urban jungles develop? It was a series of ostensibly well-meaning, but ultimately misguided decisions by our leftists in Washington. <a href="http://patdollard.com/2014/02/flashback-lyndon-johnson-on-phony-war-on-poverty-ill-have-those-niggers-voting-democratic-for-the-next-200-years/">Lyndon Banes Johnson famously stated</a> to two governors on Air Force One: <blockquote>"I’ll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." <br /><br />"These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference." </blockquote>So there's the picture drawn for you. There's the powder-keg all set up next to the munitions factory with the fuse sticking out. Now, some would argue that Darren Wilson lit the fuse. Others would argue that it was Ferguson police wearing their battle armor, wielding their AR-15s and arriving in their armored Humvees and half-tracks, who lit the fuse. There are plenty of people around the country who place the blame solely on a trouble-making eighteen year-old who was apparently a strong-arm robber who needed cigars to roll his marijuana blunts with. We can argue back and forth about who lit the fuse of this powder-keg but I'd like to know who the son-of-a-bitch is who made the powder-keg and put it there in the first place. <br /><Br />The evidence I've seen places the blame primarily on the left, on the entitlement society, on presidents past and present who continually exacerbated an ever worsening situation until today we're at the verge of a full-on race war. And maybe, just maybe that was the plan all along?http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/08/laying-blame-in-ferguson-is-like.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-9207443708245747006Tue, 12 Aug 2014 14:41:00 +00002014-08-12T09:56:21.603-05:00Oh noes! Computer climate models are deniers, too!<blockquote><a href="http://argyllfreepress.com/2014/08/12/confusion-among-the-climate-scientists/">The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a> recently requested a figure for its annual report, to show temperature trends over the last 10,000 years there seemed to be an evident problem. <br /><br />Zhengyu Liu from the University of Wisconsin says that data from observation suggests that the Earth is cooling while the physical data suggests the complete opposite. <br /><br />The problem has been termed the Holocene temperature conundrum. It has tremendously important implications for understanding climate change and evaluating climate models. The authors have however emphasized that this does not negate the evidence of human impact on global climate beginning in the 20th century. The question however remains, who is right? Liu suggests that maybe none of us are completely right, he suggests a data problems or perhaps a model problem, for example some physical mechanisms may be missing from the model. </blockquote> Have you ever wondered what is wrong with some people? Their actions simply make no sense, whatsoever. In the Global Warming debate, there is this cadre of hardcore die-hard left-wing maniacs nuts and moonbats, possessing a near messianic zeal to drag mankind—some of us kicking and screaming—back to our pre-industrial roots. If you look back at that pre-industrial 'golden-age,' you'll find famine, plague, pestilence, grinding poverty, high infant mortality, and early death. <br /><br />They say we have to stop the carbon emissions. They say we're filling up the air with our exhalations, engine exhaust, and coal-powered electrical plant emissions. Not just the USA, but the entire world must change—and soon—or it's "pockseclipse full of pain!" <br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/23SVHUPrUJ4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br />There's a term for the world these climate "scientists" want: Dystopia. It's the stuff of both history and science-fiction. But see, now that's all going to change! Now that scientists have <strike>admitted</strike> <i>discovered</i> that their computer models are massively costly mistakes, publicly funded catastrophes, asinine boondoggles, etc., finally they'll all go back to doing their scientific investigations using that old dust-covered relic known as the scientific method ... won't they? <blockquote><b><a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119056/why-climate-change-denier-myths-return">The Frustrating Climate Change Memes That Just Won’t Die</a></b><br /><b>By Rebecca Leber <a href="https://twitter.com/rebleber">@rebleber</a></b><br /><br />Whenever I write about climate change, deniers quickly respond that I have it all wrong. Global warming actually stopped over a decade ago, they say. Sometimes they even supply a chart. Yesterday, <a href="http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119033/conservatives-misrepresent-climate-scientist">I wrote</a> about why this argument is completely wrong and why this myth persists. I cited a NASA scientist in my defense. But the reaction was more of the same: On Twitter, some called me <a href="https://twitter.com/hskrmac/status/498900567121338368">a liar</a> or, at best, <a href="https://twitter.com/CoDoubt/status/498899532059774978">willfully ignorant</a> of the giant hoax. <br /><br />Really, why don’t these memes ever go away? Climate deniers twisted NASA atmospheric scientist Norman Loeb’s words last week when he tried to explain that the recent slowdown in temperature rise, something scientists have observed for a while, is very much consistent with global warming. The reason: Oceans are heating up, while surface temperatures are still at their hottest. The deniers never tell that part. </blockquote>Both of the articles that were quoted in this blog were published today, August 12, 2014. One article refreshingly offers hope that actual scientists using actual scientific observation might one day somehow derail the established IPCC Pharisees riding their gravy train down to Dystopia Town. <br /><br />The other article is the kind we see much more commonly. It was yet another in the litany of jeremiads lamenting we oafish global warming deniers. It was yet another mocking screed published by the same sort of dunce who persists in arrogantly flaunting their wholly <i>unearned</i> degrees and laurels. It was yet further evidence that a degree is a net negative. After four or more years of "higher" education, graduates walk away from these storied campuses more ignorant than the day they first walked in. <br /><br />The pseudo-intellectual rabble who currently infest modern-day universities are the sort who never <i>once</i> in their entire <i>lives</i> questioned the asinine dogma handed down by latter-day climate Pharisees. Warmists decided on a goal—a drastic reduction in humanity's average standard of living. They invented a plausible rationale—CO<sub>2</sub> was acting as a green-house gas causing increasing global temperature. Finally, they gathered together, and circled their wagons. To them measured debate consists of simply mocking anyone who questions their "science." <br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/DGXx56WqqJw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/08/oh-noes-computer-climate-models-are.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-4179909936025003097Thu, 07 Aug 2014 17:36:00 +00002014-08-07T12:36:22.878-05:00A little concerned about Ebola yet?The African Ebola outbreak may or may not have caught your attention, but it would be wise to remain extremely vigilant. While the relatively light sprinkle of disease remains far away in Africa, if it spreads widely through Nigeria—the most populous country in Africa—it will become increasingly difficult to control the outbreak and the light sprinkle of disease will grow into a torrential downpour of literally biblical proportions. <br /><br />All the talking heads assure us that there's nothing to worry about. Go on about your business they say. Nothing to see here. Move along. They assure us that our chances of catching Ebola are so minuscule that it might as well be an Ebola lottery ticket. The headline at the Boston Globe asks: <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/08/04/what-are-your-chances-getting-ebola/dsF58FxG8P3AlSKexoeQOL/story.html">What are your chances of getting Ebola?</a>. Reading the story assures us that there's absolutely nothing to worry about. In fact we should be more concerned about the flu: <br /><blockquote>News about the widening Ebola outbreak seems to get more alarming by the day. So far, roughly 1,700 people have been infected and over 900 have died. Last Friday, the World Health Organization said the spread of the virus was outpacing their response. And two American doctors who contracted the disease have been taken back to the US for treatment. <br /><br />If these headlines have left you wondering whether we are fast approaching a global pandemic with scenes reminiscent of movies like “Outbreak” and “28 days later,” here are two things to keep in mind. <br /><br />First, while Ebola is an extremely virulent disease, its impact pales in comparison to other global killers like measles, AIDS, or even the flu. <br /><br />Second, the likelihood of Ebola spreading across the US is vanishingly small. It isn't a particularly contagious disease, and in a developed country with strong health infrastructure, it probably wouldn't spread much at all. </blockquote>It turns out that in the United States the <a href="http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/influenza-and-pneumonia-death-rate/">mortality rate for the flu is about 15 per 100,000</a>. That's a little over one hundredth of one percent, or one in 6666 people. <br /><br />As for measles, even before the vaccine, the <a href="http://vaxtruth.org/2012/01/putting-measles-into-perspective/">mortality rate was infinitesimal</a>, but today it's not really a factor at all. Finally there's the HIV virus that causes AIDS. It is of course still a deadly disease that is incurable and often fatal. However, if you simply refrain from having unprotected sex and sharing needles, you're just <i>not</i> going to get it. So please allow me to dispense with patronizing reassurance number one. This Ebola outbreak is killing six out of ten. That's Russian Roulette with four chambers loaded. Comparing Ebola to the flu is like comparing a tsunami to a frog leaping off a lily-pad in some pond. <br /><Br />As for bromide number two: Ebola's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_reproduction_number">basic reproduction number</a> is lower then some of mankind's previous plagues, but even so it's still above one. That means that a person with Ebola on average is likely to spread it to at least one to four other people—and possibly considerably more. What that means is that if Ebola comes here, it's likely to spread—if slowly. Diseases that can spread do spread. Short of declaring martial law and forcing everyone to stay in their homes, contagious diseases are simply going to spread. <br /><br />One last thing to think about. Boko Haram, an Islamic terrorist organization is already in the Ebola infected area. What is to prevent one or more infected terrorists from coming here and intentionally spreading the virus? The symptoms aren't visible or detectable until as many as twenty days after initial infection. Therefore, if they could spread Ebola here, why wouldn't you suppose they would? An Ebola infected terrorist feverishly trying on a hundred different shirts at Wal-Mart would be terrifyingly effective. As would a symptomatic terrorist pushing his way through a crowded subway during rush-hour. <br /><br /><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hSa9BdPBAYE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br /><br /> This current Ebola outbreak may well be contained and eventually die out, but blithely publishing pacifying platitudes and bromides in that smug supercilious way that media figures do when they feel safe in their snug little cocoons does a great disservice to their readers. Don't try to scare us, but also, don't try to coddle us either. <br /><br />The more I think about it, the more I wonder if obsessive compulsive disorder might not be a survival trait. I've often sneered at the nervous-nellies who first swab their shopping-cart handles with a wet-wipe before touching them, but perhaps there is literally a method to their madness?http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/08/a-little-concerned-about-ebola-yet.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-5360242458183977596Sat, 26 Jul 2014 00:02:00 +00002014-07-26T08:47:30.045-05:00Doctor Frankenstein's social experiments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5HV__7hDtgU/U9E3t9RlphI/AAAAAAAACm8/llVOFPl67Ww/s1600/free-open-bar.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5HV__7hDtgU/U9E3t9RlphI/AAAAAAAACm8/llVOFPl67Ww/s400/free-open-bar.jpeg" /></a></div>Senator Harkin of Iowa wants to allow disabled Americans into our armed forces: <br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.armytimes.com/article/20140723/NEWS/307230059/Sen-Harkin-Recruit-disabled-non-combat-jobs">[Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa]</a> wants to push [providing disabled individuals with equality under the law] even further, including an amendment in a Senate draft of the annual defense appropriations bill last week that would require the military to study the possibility of allowing disabled individuals to enlist in the military in non-combat and support roles. <br /><br />“The military now permits individuals to remain on active duty if they acquire a disability while serving their country,” Harkin said during an appropriations hearing July 17. However, for a person with a similar disability who wants to enlist in the military and be a part of our defense establishment, they would not allow that, even if they needed the same reasonable accommodations.” <br /><br />The Defense Department already follows federal law mandating “reasonable accommodations” for disabled civilian employees, but no such exceptions are made for enlistees. <br /><br />“They're not going to be combat people, but we have a lot of people with disabilities who are lawyers who would like to enter the JAG Corps and be a part of our military,” Harkin said. “For every one combat person, there are 10 behind them.” </blockquote>Meanwhile far from D.C. tens of thousands of illegal immigrants are inundating our borders ever since Obama advertised the big open bar party on the northern side of the border. When you ask who's to blame for the border crisis, all you get is deflection and talking points. The Democrats wanted this. Don't think for one minute that this insanity isn't by design. <br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-aides-were-warned-of-brewing-border-crisis/2014/07/19/8b5d2282-0d1b-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html">Nearly a year before President Obama</a> declared <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-calls-wave-of-children-across-us-mexican-border-urgent-humanitarian-situation/2014/06/02/4d29df5e-ea8f-11e3-93d2-edd4be1f5d9e_story.html" title="www.washingtonpost.com">a humanitarian crisis on the border</a>, a team of experts arrived at the Fort Brown patrol station in Brownsville, Tex., and discovered a makeshift transportation depot for a deluge of foreign children. <br /><br />Thirty Border Patrol agents were assigned in August 2013 to drive the children to off-site showers, wash their clothes and make them sandwiches. As soon as those children were placed in temporary shelters, more arrived. An average of 66 were apprehended each day on the border and more than 24,000 cycled through Texas patrol stations in 2013. In <a href="http://ncbsi.utep.edu/documents/UAC%20Project%20Site%20Visits/UTEP%20NCBSI%20Final%20Report%20March%2020%202014.pdf" title="ncbsi.utep.edu">a 41-page report to the Department of Homeland Security</a>, the team from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) raised alarms about the federal government’s capacity to manage a situation that was expected to grow worse.</blockquote> Meanwhile in your own neighborhoods and at your local orphanage and foster-homes It's apparently the age of inclusion. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE">Queue the hippy music</a>. You want to get married to a consenting adult? Two consenting adults, three? <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/56063485-90/polygamy-marriage-gay-court.html.csp">Polygamy</a>? Incest? You want to marry your sister? We don't care! Have a ball! <blockquote> <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10958728/Australian-judge-says-incest-may-no-longer-be-a-taboo.html">Judge Garry Neilson</a>, from the district court in the state of New South Wales, likened incest to homosexuality, which was once regarded as criminal and "unnatural" but is now widely accepted. <br /><br />He said incest was now only a crime because it may lead to abnormalities in offspring but this rationale was increasingly irrelevant because of the availability of contraception and abortion. <br /><br />"A jury might find nothing untoward in the advance of a brother towards his sister once she had sexually matured, had sexual relationships with other men and was now 'available', not having [a] sexual partner," the judge said. <br /><br />"If this was the 1950s and you had a jury of 12 men there, which is what you'd invariably have, they would say it's unnatural for a man to be interested in another man or a man being interested in a boy. Those things have gone."</blockquote> America's services—schools, welfare programs, emergency medicine, and sundry social services of one kind or another—are sort of like an open bar where the drinks are free for those who're invited. Invitees are permitted to partake of the refreshments at will. The people legally here are welcome. They're expected. They paid the entrance fee, or their parents did. But, what happens when you let legions of party crashers willy-nilly into your open bar? Vandalism, hooliganism, violence, broken furniture, fires, is what you get and worst of all you also run out of booze. A party where the bar-stools are all kindling, the jukebox is smashed, and the open bar has no more booze, is about as entertaining as a quadriplegic prostitute. <br /><br />I'm blind in one eye. I have been since a car accident that happened when I was twenty years old. The various armed forces wouldn't allow me to sign up with my almost insignificant disability. If you think about it, you only shoot with one eye anyway so what was the big deal? The lesson from 300 is a good place to start. <br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hQ0CP4x-hfM" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />The key phrase that Leonidas explained to Efialtes was this: "We fight as a single impenetrable unit." If I was a soldier and I failed to see something because of my blindness or failed to catch something that had been thrown to me because of my poor depth perception and either of those sorts of failures caused the death or injury of a fellow soldier or soldiers, then how would those who allowed me to sign up explain their decision? <br /><br />Our soldiers fight as a single unit. They expect each man to do his job. It doesn't get more life and death than a battlefield, so how can anyone justify allowing our armed forces to be compromised with a bunch of weak links? It therefore baffles me that that our politically correct leaders have sprinkled our military with a selection of weak links. <br /><br />The way they've sissified basic training is an example of misguided policy makers making fair-seeming decisions with unintended yet terrible consequences. Women, homosexuals, and now disabled will all be handed an M-16 and ushered onto some battlefield, somewhere. What's wrong with that you ask? For those of you who ask "why not?", I'll ask you just this one question. What if the managers of your favorite NFL football team make the decision to put women, transsexuals, and even cripples on the line of scrimmage? Well, are you okay with that? And even if you are, do you think the other players on the team will go for it? They play as a unit. If a weak-link keeps letting the defensive tackles breeze by and the quarterback keeps getting sacked and at some point injured, what then? <br /><br />What about all these "social experiments" regarding marriage? We hear the phrase "social experiment" all the time and it just sort of flies by without triggering any emotional reflex. Social experiment ... <i>ho-hum ... yawn</i>. Here's a social experiment for you: Get a 45 caliber revolver and load all six chambers. Then carry the gun to your kindergarten son or daughter's classroom and hide it in the toy chest. Are you awake yet? I argue that allowing these "experimental families" the opportunity to adopt someone else's child is as equally insane. Are these people serious? I'm just shaking my head in dismay at what's happening in this country. <br /><br />Finally, the border situation is on everybody's mind. Tens of thousands of illegals most with children, and even some children all by themselves are pouring across the border. They don't speak English. They don't have any job skills. They aren't properly vaccinated; many harbor deadly diseases; they're hiding within their multicultural throngs a variety of murderers, rapists, drug dealers, thieves, alcoholics, addicts, etc. Dingy Harry wants them here. Obama wants them here. Nancy Pelosi and the entire left side of the political aisle all want them here. Why? Simply for their votes of course. None of these illegals bring anything else with them. They bring hungry bellies, disease, crime, and a vote. If you're voting for the same people these illegals will end up voting for, then this is your mess. You statists and progressivists might as well have shouted "OPEN BAR! COME ON IN!" to every wino in Times Square. <br /><br /> http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/07/doctor-frankensteins-social-experiments.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-2914951917331392413Sun, 13 Jul 2014 15:10:00 +00002014-07-13T10:24:26.622-05:00Raise the sales tax again ... why not go ahead and make it 100% now?<blockquote><a href="http://wreg.com/2014/07/11/raise-the-sales-tax-rate-to-fund-the-pension/">MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Sources tell</a> WREG-TV the heads of the fire and police associations in Memphis have proposed raising the city sales tax to restore full healthcare benefits. The head of the Memphis Fire Association however told WREG that is not something that will go forward and be proposed to the public. <br /><br />Current city employees and some retirees will pay 24% more for healthcare, while some retirees will lose their entire insurance subsidy. We are told there has been a proposal for a tax hike by half a cent to 9.75%. That rate would put Memphis equal with several surrounding municipalities which raised their sales tax to fund new schools. <br /><br />If the proposal were to moved forward, voters would have to approve it. There are estimates the hike could raise more than $45 million per year. A similar change in the sales tax, to fund pre-k, was defeated last November. <br /><br />The Segal Company, a human resources consulting firm, found the city pension is underfunded by $467 million. That contradicts a report commissioned by the firefighters union which put the number at $301 million and a report done by PricewaterhouseCoopers which put it at $682 million. <br /><br />As of July 1, the State of Tennessee requires local governments to contribute 100% of the cost, determined by outside agencies, needed to keep their pension funded. </blockquote>Oh those poor police and fire-fighters! It's possible if I don't take a half-percent pay-cut that they could lose their 100% paid for insurance and pension plans. What an injustice <i>that</i> would be! Never mind that the privately owned company that I work for doesn't even <i>have</i> a pension plan. never mind that my family's insurance plan gets crappier every year, and for this ever-crappier insurance, I pay more and more and more every year. But never mind all of that. Why should my family's suffering have any bearing whatsoever on the city's decision to forcibly extract even more money from my own family's ever tightening budget? <br /><br />I can tell you from personal experience that everything costs so much more these days than it did just six years ago. I haven't gotten a raise in those six years, so effectively I've already taken a 30% pay-cut. Now they want to make it 30.5%. And the best thing of all is that I have essentially no power at all to affect this decision. It seems like every year the city has another reason to raise the sales tax. In fact it seems like it was just last year when they wanted to <a href="http://www.wmcactionnews5.com/story/23062328/council-votes-to-increase-sales-tax-for-pre-k-funding">raise sales tax to pay for pre-kindergarten</a>. <br /><br />Guys, I want to talk for a moment about simple math and simple economics for just a minute. I'm sorry if the following explanation gets a little dry and boring but I'll try to be brief. <br /><br />For simplicity's sake let's take one guy with a family of four making $50,000 per year. After taxes that's $42,617.64. So you say, that's not so bad. 15% off the top for federal tax and social security. In other states there would be state income tax also deducted. But wait! There's less! After subtracting sales tax at 9.25% our seemingly fairly successful middle-class worker takes home only $37,875.00. <br /><Br />People who work for the city of Memphis say...<i>well yes everything costs more. Rent, utilities, food, clothing, utilities, healthcare, everything costs more. So we need more money.</i> Yes, but the city budget is paid for primarily with sales and property taxes. If food costs more then obviously the city gets more sales tax revenue. If a $10.00 ham has a sales tax of $0.92 and the grocery store increases the price of that ham to $15.00, then the sales tax collected is $1.39. This represents a 50% increase in the price of the ham <i>and</i> in the revenue generated from its sale. No matter how much prices rise, the city should still be floating like a boat rising higher no matter how high the waters rise. <br /><br />Therefore if rent costs more it's because property costs more, meaning ever-higher property tax revenue. If food costs more it means increased sales tax revenue from its sale. If utilities cost more it means the city brings in increased revenue from <a href="http://www.ecode360.com/27680309">taxes imposed on utilities</a>. There's a direct one for one increase in revenue vs. prices no matter how much prices rise. Memphis takes the same percentage of money from every resident and visitor who purchases goods and services in the city. <br /><br />I'm trying to explain that the excuse of inflation to explain raising sales tax is a low-down rotten stinking good-for-nothing excuse and nothing more. If everything costs more then that means the city makes that much more in tax revenue. <br /><br />So why is there a budget shortfall? Is it perhaps because the city of Memphis promised pie-in-the-sky pensions for every city employee who puts in their 10 years? Is it perhaps because the city of Memphis promised pie-in-the-sky lifetime health-care for every city employee who puts in their 10 years? <br /><br />A 20 year old man works for the city for 10 years and becomes fully 'vested' which means he qualifies for full retirement benefits from the city. He goes to another city and does the same thing, and another and another. He retires at age 65 with 4 pensions plus his social security benefits. Every year thereafter he'll cost taxpayers considerably more to sit on a couch and watch the TV than he ever did while he was working. Some cities or municipalities require a different period of time to become fully vested but the effect is the same to a greater or lesser degree. Public sector employees frequently if not ubiquitously retire with multiple full-pensions. <br /><Br />If you want to know why cities and states keep increasing the percentage of money they take it's because with advances in medicine—<i>medicine paid for by the tax-payer</i>—retirees live to greater and greater ages. This has an exponentially multiplying effect on city budgets. If people live ten years longer they cost the city double. twenty years longer and they cost the city quadruple. <br /><br />I have a great solution to this pension problem. Do the same thing health insurance companies do. If you have two policies covering the same person then one takes precedence. The insurance companies may quibble amongst themselves about which policy takes precedence but still and all, only one insurance company pays the bill, not both. Public sector pensions should follow the same rules. You have three public sector pensions? Sorry, but only one will be paying you. In the interests of fairness, that paying pension should at least be the highest paying one. Don't forget you still get Social Security, so cheer up officer Bob. http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/07/raise-sales-tax-again-why-not-go-ahead.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6808793965778967086.post-3979662379114227072Sun, 29 Jun 2014 17:48:00 +00002014-06-29T12:48:14.773-05:00A Teenager's Letter to Obama <br /><span style="font-family: Arial;">Dear President Barack Obama,</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span><br /> <span style="font-family: Arial;">Like you, I’m a superhero. I’ve been watching you, and I think we both have the same superpower.</span><br /><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Unlike you, the problem for me is that nobody realizes this fact.</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Maybe everyone should be paying closer attention to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i>. It’s like I know <em>everything</em> for instance. There’s a word for that—omni-something or other. Omni LOL! Sounds like some 70’s era station-wagon. Like you President Obama, I am also incredibly generous. If I had millions of dollars I’d definitely give away thousands of dollars of it to charitable causes. The problem is that my parents haven’t given me millions of dollars yet.</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Even though I know everything, I’m still not doing that well in school because—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">as usual</i>—my teachers are all stupid. Why should I memorize boring names, titles, dates, facts, figures, etc., when you can look all that stuff up on Google? And also, what good is it to know everything, when professors expect you to dance around reciting boring facts as though you were some kind of monkey dancing to the tune of a peddler’s Hurdy-Gurdy?</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I would have been more successful in school if my parents had done more. There were days when dinner totally sucked. How am I supposed to do homework when I’m hungry? There were days when I went to school hungry because the cereal was all gone or the milk was all gone or the pop-tarts were all gone. What, am I supposed to cook eggs or something? Plus, my parents don’t even have a toaster! How am I supposed to toast bread without a toaster? In the oven? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Please!</i></span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I was all set to be the valedictorian of my high school, you know. There I was in Idaho and everything was perfect. Then, before my tenth grade year, my parents just up and moved to Memphis, Tennessee, because of my dad’s stupid job or something. And because of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that</i> I started failing classes. </span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Teachers here in Memphis, Suckasee, are so stupid. OMG! If you don’t believe me just ask some of my friends. It’s like you ask a simple question and then they have to give you some kind of an hour long lecture that even if anyone could stand to listen to the whole long boring stupid thing, it would totally make no sense at all.</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It’s not fair! </span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">All my friends have cars. If my parents had gotten <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">me</i> a car I would have done better in school. Even though I’m a superhero, flying isn’t one of my super powers. Which <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">also</i> isn’t fair by the way. How am I supposed to do all the things I have to do, like get homework done, then eat breakfast, then get ready, then finally, finally—OMG!—make it out to the bus stop before the sun even comes out? It’s like the universe has it in for me. And my parents too! And my stupid school with all its stupid-stupid-stupid teachers.</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Did I mention that I have to do chores? I mean, my parents, my school, and all my stupid teachers constantly dump all over me. I’m standing here, holding the entire world on my shoulders—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">like that Greek Pizza-Pizza guy</i>—and they just keep dumping more and more stuff on me. I’m so sorry world! It turns out that my super power is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> doing homework and chores at the speed of light! Take out the garbage. Mow the lawn. Do this do that! OMG! It sucks so totally, so completely totally much that … I’m just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">over</i> it. You know what I mean? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">OVER IT!</i></span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I had a D in my freshman English class in Idaho. I know that’s not great, but it was passing. In Idaho a 65 is a D. Here in Memphis, Suckasee, you have to have a 70 to pass. I was passing in Idaho but in this craptastic countryass town it’s a fail. So why should I have to repeat it? Why should I bother studying, reading, and doing homework for a class I already passed? Now I’ve taken that same stupid freshman English class <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">three times</i>! They just don’t get it do they? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hello! I already passed!</i></span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It really breaks my heart. I could have really been somebody if it wasn’t for everybody else holding me back. Every time I started to get ahead, they pulled me back. It just goes to show that even when you’re a superhero, if they crap on you enough, your life will totally suck.</span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">&nbsp;</span>So, you’re probably wondering what my super power is? Whenever anything bad happens that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">seems</i> to be my fault, I have the ability to explain whose fault it really is. My parents call this power of mine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">making excuses</i>, but President Obama, you and I both know it’s called an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">explanation.</i></span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">PS—My freshman English teacher made me write this stupid letter. I hope she’s happy…<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">NOT!</i></span></div><div class="x1" style="margin: 6pt 0in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">PPS—Edited spellchecked and rewritten literally from beginning-to-end by the stupid parents of this amazingly incredibly intelligent, wise, and awesome high school-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">soon-to-be-a-dropout</i>superhero.</span></div>http://www.cyclopsjack.com/2014/06/a-teenagers-letter-to-obama.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (JackAfter6)0